The Omen II & III

As an opening aside, I've never been sure if The Omen deserves to be called a classic. It's a damn good movie, to be sure, and certain scenes are among the best in the genre. I've always had the problem that between those scenes, the movie drags its feet to an almost alarming degree. Granted, alot of supernatural/Satanic films do this, but generally it's because the rising dread, the juxtaposition of the scary to the normal scenes, is part of the quality. However, The Omen doesn't really count. You basically know what's going on, there's no real question of HMMMM IS THAT A GHOST OR WHAT, which makes watching Gregory Peck vacillate for like four/fifths of a movie pretty grating at times.

OKAY SO OMEN II AND III. What's interesting about the sequels is that while both are pretty blah, the reasons they both fail to be a proper sequel to the original are pretty different. The failure of the Omen II is pretty simple, but there's some intriguing things going on with the The Omen III.

There's a pretty constant series of events in The Omen II that play over and over again. Damien is a teenager, his adoptive uncle refuses to listen to things, people present obstacles to Damien and/or the satanic plan and die shortly after. Initially, Damien isn't aware of his ancestry, and really doesn't seem that sinister, just your average jerk kid in a military academy who happens to give rise to his anger by making people hit their heads against the wall. It's a minor plot complaint, but it kind of fucks up the great ending of the original, what with the SINISTER AS FUCK SMILE implying that Damien is starting to figure things out. Instead, for most of the movie Damien is just bewildered as fuck, like being the Antichrist is something the pamphlets fail to mention about puberty. Fortunately, Damien has a young Lance Henriksen, playing the head of his unit, to teach him the ropes. Aside from my man-crush on Henrikson, objectively Henriksen is one of the better parts of the film, being creepy as shit and probably the closest thing to the atmosphere from the original.

Really though, the problem with the film is the sheer repetition, especially in death scenes. Say what I will about the original, it knew how to come out of left field multiple times and surprise you in how people were going to be offed. One of the more infamous scenes is the PLATE GLASS death. It's the Ur-Final Destination style of death, a Rube Goldberg series of unfortunate angles ruining your day. It works because at this point in the movie, you know what the result is going to be, but HOLY SHIT DID YOU SEE THAT process. It obviously wowed the producer of the sequel, as his plan for the film could be summarized as "the plate glass scene, seven more times."

By the end of the film, it's literally ridiculous in how every death scene functions essentially the same way:
1) An Ominous Crow and Latin Chorus Appear!
2) Victim casts Does Normal Thing!
3) Latin Chorus began to sing!
4) Crow Casts Really Inconceivable Series of Events! Critical Hit!
5) Victim Died!

It is literally the 70's Final Destination, which wouldn't be so bad if the Omen II wasn't trying to take itself so seriously. It's hard to be be really brought into a terrifying world of the devil when you're going "oh shit bro it's that crow and hey is that latin haven't heard that before what's going to happen" every five minutes. To be fair, there's some really good death scenes, especially by 70's standards, but the essential point remains. The only time a possessed box doesn't fall on a player's head is the end, which really wants to emulate the original's ending, and ends up rivaling the ending to An American Werewolf in London for making you feel like the screenwriter had five minutes before filming to come up with the ending. It is the quidessential "what, what" ending.

Though Omen II had better death scenes, Omen III is probably the better movie. There's at least a sort of plot progression, as opposed to demonic wheel-spinning. Damien is now Sam O'Neill, head of a giant multinational corporation, and after his Rottweiler that can growl at people and control their minds takes care of business, the American ambassador to Britain. Yeah, did you notice something odd about that sentence? While Omen II was a misguided attempt to emulate the original, the third time around is an exercise in utter insanity. It doesn't help that there are three sort of intersecting plots, none of which get enough screen time to really flesh out. There's the usual two "Damien being bad and getting badder," and "person close to Damien (this time, a female news host) discovers he's not a cool bro," but now there's a plot about a group of monks (presumably Benedictine, as they meet in Subiaco) who have gotten the magic daggers to kill Damien and utterly fail in every way (again, Benedictines, which was really baffling because I cannot think of a monastic order less suited to doing something besides drinking). The added element just means that the movie is more complicated, but more insubstantial. There's alot of subplots within the main plots which get maybe ten minutes of discussion, such as the whole issue of the news host's son becoming an acolyte for Damien. There's no slow degeneration, it's pretty much a jump from "wow mom damien is pretty cool" to "HAIL SATAN BLOOD FOR THE NEW FLESH."

Simply put, this movie is pretty insane. It might be that the screenwriter was trying to invoke the whole Revelations vibe, but the tone is like the dullest fever dream ever. By that, I mean while there's lots of weird stuff going on, the reaction to it is usually just "Really? Really?" This especially applies to the ending, which is just pretty embarrassing on all counts.

One thing worth discussing is the portrayal of the Antichrist here. Generally speaking, horror movies tend to portray the Antichrist/Devil as a sort of super powered, smooth operator baddy that tempts people, or just a generally murderous destroyer without much personality. Sam O'Neill does neither. Here, the Antichrist is essentially a portrait of the Devil by Woody Allen.

• As a business leader, he's obviously mean, but he's also fairly incompetent. His big political conspiracy plan essentially explodes in his face. More importantly, when Christ finally comes back, he just bones up everything completely. He's essentially convinced that Christ is coming back as a baby due to some Apocrypha text, apparently completely forgetting that Revelations essentially states that Jesus is coming back as a FULL GROWN MAN. He assigns the job of monitoring the destruction of all babies born at that time to the guy whose wife JUST HAD A BABY, and doesn't really pursue the possibility that the baby might be included in the whole thing until he's pretty much told that that's the case.
• Even in public, he's sort of awkward and weird. He has less the aura of something that seduces and destroys and more of someone who reads pickup artist forums. This is especially apparent during his scenes with a Jesus statue that is bending over on the cross. I couldn't tell if the scene was there to make us sympathize with Damien, or just feel embarrassed for him him as he rants about how Jesus is totally square and the devil just wants to have fun in tormenting people in this weird way that's basically the opposite of Al Pacino's scenery chewing rant.
• Did I mention the bent over jesus thing? Probably the most baffling scene in the movie is when he decides to buttrape the news lady, who finds him in the morning lying naked next to the christ statue. What.
  

I HOPE YOU LIKE MUSIC MADE FOR GIRLS

I know it's basically hilariously passe for people to mock pitchfork reviews, but for fuck's sake. I always like reading Pitchfork's reviews of music that is more intense than neutral milk hotel, because, perhaps understandably, no one is going to buy that anyone writing for that site actually listens to hard music. As a result, ANY review of vaguely punky music is filled to the brim with namedrops. I mean, come on NITSUH ABEBE, there is at least a dozen references to bands on there (and I did like the UNGH LABEL FINISHER, PLAYER ONE WINS). It's like one realizes that your average reader on there is afraid of scary music, so you run to your editor terrified that it's not even going to be noticed (WHILE THAT BASTARD WITH THE NON-RETARDED NAME GETS TO COVER THE NEW BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE ALBUM AND HE COULD JUST WRITE "FART" AND IT WOULD BE NUMBER ONE FOR THREE WEEKS*) and he's all ha ha I hate you but maybe if you cover the opening paragraph with a bunch of recognizable bands maybe someone will care


*: to be fair, that would be probably the best review possible for that album

The Children (2008)

Oh hey I'm a review blog.

Though I can't explain it, I'm a pretty big fan of "small thing X murders stuff" movies. Whether it be killer dolls, insects, or midgets (I can't think of any movies featuring the last assailant, though I'm sure it will come to me). Generally speaking, the idea of "small danger" horror is the empathy with the victim that "wait, that shouldn't be a danger to me." You might be creeped out about that stupid doll your son bought, but it really shouldn't be doing anything deadly. This is especially true in "killer children" movies, where the monster is YOUR OWN SPAWN.

Generally speaking, killer children movies tend to follow a pretty strict set of rules. The theme is almost always the idea of children alienated from the standard order of adults, and violently striking out, whether it be weird radioactive spills (the older version of "The Children), evil alien control (Village of the Damned), ancient burial curses (Pet Semetary), or cults run by evil monster man (Children of the Corn). That theme is prevalent in The Children, but the difference is that the reason behind the raising up is never fully explained. It could be viral, but there's enough weird jump-cuts that there's likely something behind that. I'd have preferred to have most of the origin references entirely cut out (and guessing by how clunky most of these insertions were, I'm hoping against the glories that this was one of those post-production executives WAIT WHY ARE THE KIDS BEING BAD PUT SOMETHING ON moments).

The setting and characters need only be described as "the most stereotypically upper middle class British ever." Until the Bad Stuff happens, you could probably bring a bingo card with all of the buzzwords that a screenwriter would use to indicate that these are totally bourgeoisie, self-absorbed dimwits. Eco-tourism! Home-schooling! Chinese Medicine! The actors and actresses aren't bad, and it's not like the writing's a chore to get through, but it's a credit to the movie that it fairly quickly switches to the horror fairly quickly. This isn't like House of the Devil, where the buildup is the thing. I honestly can't remember much about the prelude except that I wanted to bone the protagonist mother over the protagonist teenager, and wondering if this was an intentional director movie.

Were you an awful kid? I imagine you were. God knows I was, and at a ridiculously young age, I figured out that certain actions and expressions could manipulate my parents pretty easily, without their logic kicking in and trying to figure out WAIT IS THERE A REASON YOU ATE AN ENTIRE BOTTLE OF FLINTSTONES VITAMINS AND THREW OUT THE BOTTOM TWO SHELVES OF FOOD FROM THE FRIDGE. Parents, or at least those who have like a shelf of childcare texts and will earnestly buy their fetus Chopin so he can get an MBA and not be a crashing failure like their own life middle-managing the health foods store (main task: UPDATE BLOG ON HEART ATTACKS AND VIOLET EXTRACT), are gullible to their kids. I guess there's an irony that your huckleberry fucks that seriously think Glenn Beck has their best interests in heart are also the best equipped to recognize the lies of children, but this is getting some rambly-pambly junk.

I guess what impressed me about The Children was that it is the first movie I can remember that really recognizes this critical factor in the parent-child relationship, and uses it to really bring up the creepy factor. Generally speaking, killer kids have two phases: 1) oh I am fine 2) MURDER MURDER STALK KILL. Also, unless there is some new victim that is unaware of the situation, the latter phase never reverts to the first. Here, the children are rarely miniature psychos, but instead use familiar behavior and actions to lull adults into their dooms. If you saw the trailer, then you've seen the sled scene. It's the first death scene, and a fairly effective one. What makes it work is that there's no indication from the kids that they're planning the doom of ENVIRONMENTAL TOURISM DAD. Instead, they're all happy and content, the family of great caring. Unlike your average child killer, once they're switched on, they're still capable of acting perfectly normal kids. I imagine this is probably way more fun for actual parents.

Even when the rabbit is out of the hat, the children continue to exhibit the "typical" behavior, even if it's mixed in with a casual homicidal tendency. I'm not sure if it's in the trailer (and I'm not watching the trailer because it is late and I'm all alone in the dark), but there's a line spoken by one of the kids that really brings out the surreality and horror of the situation, and it's hard to tell if the tone is mocking, confused, or simply said because that's what kids say.

god I'm never having children