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THE OMEN (2006)

"Demon Seed"

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What You Need To Know:

THE OMEN is a remake of the popular 1976 horror movie about an evil child who may be the Anti-Christ. This time, the parents of the boy are younger. After an opening where the Pope gets some scary news about the coming of the Anti-Christ, the wife of an U.S. State Dept. official has a difficult childbirth. Unknown to her, the baby dies and her husband, Robert Thorn, adopts the live child of a dead mother. A few years later, Robert is warned that the child, Damien, may be the Anti-Christ. A terrible accident leads Robert to search for the truth.

This new version of THE OMEN is stylishly directed and well-acted, but its depiction of an evil child is not as compelling as it could have been. The movie’s religious and moral aspects are a bit problematic. THE OMEN also has some scary content that will frighten viewers out of their seats. It contains some very strong, intense or disturbing violence, and some strong obscenities and profanities. The most gruesome violent content is a scary, bloody decapitation scene. MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution. Media-wise moviegoers should be careful.

Content:

(CC, FR, H, AB, L, VVV, M) Strong Dispensational Christian worldview about the Anti-Christ, with some pro-Christian and pro-Catholic content, some slightly positive depictions of Jesus on the Cross, and earnest priest who appears somewhat crazy tells another man that he needs to accept Jesus Christ and take Communion every day for divine salvation and to protect he and his family from evil, marred by false religious elements where an adoptive father may have to kill his adopted young son because the child may be the so-called Anti-Christ, plus brief humanist, anti-theist content where protagonist has doubts which cause him to deny the existence of God and the Devil and to label believers as fanatics; two obscenities (including one “f” word), one strong profanity and three light exclamatory profanities; very strong disturbing, scary or graphic violence in a few scenes, such as bloody decapitation scene, man’s body pierced by steel shaft, woman hangs herself at birthday party attended by children, woman knocked off stool plunges down two-story entryway to land hard on her back, dogs attack people, driver hits villain with rushing car, gorilla smashes zoo window several times and frightens children, man fights female villain who attacks him, gasoline truck hits car and spills gas which causes an explosion, gunshot apparently kills somebody, scary dogs, dog hits entrance into cellar and falls down into cellar but is otherwise unhurt, scary nightmares with monster images and crazy people, and images of dead child’s bones where it is obvious someone has crushed the skull to murder the child; no sex; no nudity; no alcohol use, but Catholic priest is called a crazy, delusional drunk; no smoking; and, evil nanny lies to parents of adopted boy and father hides truth about adopted baby from his wife, which causes problems later for him.

More Detail:

THE OMEN is a remake of the popular 1976 horror movie about an evil child who may be the Anti-Christ. This time, the parents of the young boy are younger.

After an opening where the Pope gets some scary news about the coming of the Anti-Christ, Robert Thorn gets news that his wife, Kate’s, newborn baby has died in childbirth. The hospital’s priest offers to give the live child of a dead mother to Thorn without Kate’s knowledge.

Robert becomes the new U.S. ambassador to England when the newly appointed ambassador suffers a fatal accident. Two years later, Robert and Kate are attending their child, Damien’s, birthday party. Suddenly, Damien’s nanny commits suicide in front of everyone, and the Thorns have to hire a new nanny, Mrs. Baylock, who is not as nice as she seems.

An upset Irish priest warns Robert about Damien and tells Robert to accept Jesus Christ to protect his family. Robert ignores the priest’s warnings, but that begins to change when Kate starts having fears and doubts about Damien. A terrible accident leads Robert on a search for the truth. He discovers that Damien may be the evil Anti-Christ who is ordained to rule the world and cause Armageddon, the final battle between nations before Jesus Christ returns. Robert is told that, if Damien is the Anti-Christ, he will have a birthmark with the number 666 under the hair on his head. If so, then Robert must kill Damien with a set of sanctified knives – on the altar of a church, no less.

This new version of THE OMEN is stylishly directed and well-acted. There are two too many easy scares, however, where things jump out at the characters and the viewers. Also, it would have been more interesting, and more scary, if the evil child in the story was actually a lovable, charismatic child. In that case, the evil that he represents would be more of a surprise. Instead, the filmmakers give the evil child a dour expression and nasty disposition throughout the movie, which becomes a bit laughable and incongruous at times.

Like other versions of the Anti-Christ story, THE OMEN confuses the beast in the Book of Revelation with New Testament teachings about being an antichrist. In reality, the New Testament teaches that anyone who denies that the Messiah of the Hebrews came in the flesh and appeared on earth as Jesus Christ is an antichrist. There is no passage saying that the beast in Revelation who will run the world and persecute Christians is an antichrist or the Anti-Christ. In fact, there are actually two beasts in Chapter 13 of Revelation. Contrary to THE OMEN, it is not the first beast that comes out of the sea that has the mark of 666, but the second beast that comes out of the earth. Whatever you believe about this subject, however, it is hard for a movie like this to do full justice to all of the apocalyptic prophecies contained in Revelation. This is also true of Christian movies and novels that try to talk about the beasts in Revelation or Armageddon. For extremely detailed discussions of the Book of Revelation, MOVIEGUIDE® recommends LAST DAYS MADNESS by Gary DeMar, THE DAYS OF VENGEANCE by David Chilton, MORE THAN CONQUERORS by William Hendriksen, and BEFORE JERUSALEM FELL by Kenneth L. Gentry.

THE OMEN has some scary content and jump scenes that will frighten viewers. It also contains some very strong, intense or disturbing violence. The most gruesome violent content is a scary, bloody decapitation scene. THE OMEN also contains one use of the “f” word and one strong profanity. Finally, the idea that the parents of a troubled or evil child might have to murder that child is highly problematic, to say the least. To wrap such a notion in the context of biblical prophecy is disturbing. It’s ultimately hard, however, to take THE OMEN and its story seriously. Even so, movies like this can have a tremendous effect on people’s worldviews, beliefs and even behavior. So, people should be media-wise when it comes to thinking about or watching such movies.