Review: "Bram Stoker’s Dracula" Still a Stand-Out Dracula Movie

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 16 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
Running time: 128 minutes (2 hours, 8 minutes)
MPAA – R for sexuality and horror violence
DIRECTOR: Francis Ford Coppola
WRITER: James V. Hart (based upon the novel by Bram Stoker)
PRODUCERS: Fred Fuchs, Charles Mulvehill, and Francis Ford Coppola
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Michael Ballhaus
EDITORS: Anne Goursaud, Glen Scantlebury, and Nicholas C. Smith
COMPOSER: Wojciech Kilar
Academy Award winner

HORROR/FANTASY/ROMANCE with elements of drama

Starring: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves, Richard E. Grant, Cary Elwes, Bill Campbell, Sadie Frost, Tom Waits, and Monica Bellucci

The subject of this movie review is Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a 1992 vampire movie and Gothic horror film from director Francis Ford Coppola. The film’s screenplay essentially takes the familiar Dracula story and emphasizes romantic and sensual elements. The film’s lavish production values helped it earn many honors, box office success, and some favorable attention from film critics.

Francis Ford Coppola’s lavish and colorful gothic extravaganza, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, is a three-time Academy Award winner. Dazzling, lush, and sensuous, the film affirms Coppola’s place as imaginative and brilliant filmmaker. The film also testifies to the talents of all the cohorts. Eschewing the (then) burgeoning use of computers to add special effects to films, the SFX, cinematographer, makeup, sets artists, and designers used old-fashioned craftsmanship and artistry to create an amazing movie that harks to the past while looking out of this world impossible.

The film’s story is similar to previous adaptations of Bram Stoker’s novel (although most films are actually based on an early 20th century stage version of Stoker’s novel than the novel itself), but the attraction here is the visual interpretation. Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves), a young lawyer, travels to into the gloomy misty land of Eastern Europe, Transylvania, to meet a mysterious client, Count Dracula (Gary Oldman), who is buying several tracts of property in London. Dracula, a vampire, later imprisons Harker when he discovers that Mina Murray (Winona Ryder), Harker’s fiancée, exactly resembles is late human wife, Elisabeta (Ms. Ryder), who killed herself centuries ago. Dracula travels in secret to London where he seduces and drains the life out of Mina’s friend, Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost). However, the cautious Dr. Jack Seward (Richard E. Grant) summons his old mentor, Professor Abraham Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) who immediately recognizes Lucy’s ailment and subsequent death as the work of a vampire. Van Helsing gathers Lucy’s friends to destroy Dracula, but the undead count has in eyes on Mina, and she, surprisingly, as her eyes on him.

The film is very entertaining, a stunning visual treat, and a unique horror film that hypnotizes you into watching it over and over again. Gary Oldman is one of the best screen Dracula’s ever; he is magnificent and alluring, but also fearsome and awe-inspiring. Winona Ryder is simultaneously demure and spirited as the brave Mina who is also secretly a naughty girl. The rest of the cast is mostly hit or miss. Anthony Hopkins gives a mostly annoying performance as Van Helsing, in which he only occasionally makes the character the brave and resolute leader he was in the original novel. Keanu Reeves is wooden, stiff, and nearly undead himself as Jonathan Harker. How could Mina not choose an undead monster with romantic inclinations over a pebble like Reeves’ Harker. The rest of the cast is functional and has its moments. The attraction here is the amazing work of Coppola and his filmmaking crew, as well as the screen duo of Oldman and Ms. Ryder; they’re the reasons you see this film.

7 of 10
A-

NOTES:
1993 Academy Awards: 3 wins: “Best Costume Design” (Eiko Ishioka), “Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing” (Tom C. McCarthy and David E. Stone), and “Best Makeup” (Greg Cannom, Michèle Burke, and Matthew W. Mungle); 1 nomination: “Best Art Direction-Set Decoration” (Thomas E. Sanders and Garrett Lewis)

1994 BAFTA Awards: 4 nominations: “Best Costume Design” (Eiko Ishioka), “Best Make Up Artist” (Greg Cannom, Michèle Burke, and Matthew W. Mungle), “Best Production Design” (Thomas E. Sanders), and “Best Special Effects” (Roman Coppola, Gary Gutierrez, Michael Lantieri, and Gene Warren Jr.)

Quentin Tarantino to Be Honored at Hollywood Film Awards

Quentin Tarantino, writer/director of "Django Unchained," to receive the "Hollywood Screenwriter Award"

The 16th Annual Hollywood Film Awards, presented by the Los Angeles Times, is pleased to announce that screenwriter/director Quentin Tarantino will be given the "Hollywood Screenwriter Award," at this year’s awards gala.

"We are honored to present this award to Quentin for his unique and exceptional creative vision at this year's Gala," said Carlos de Abreu, Founder and Executive Director of the Hollywood Film Awards.

The 2012 Hollywood Film Awards has also announced that it will honor Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston and John Goodman with the “Hollywood Ensemble Acting Award” for “Argo, ”writer/director David O. Russell with the “Hollywood Director Award,” Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro with the "Hollywood Supporting Actor Award," Academy Award-winning actress Marion Cotillard with the "Hollywood Actress Award," Academy Award-nominated actress Amy Adams with the "Hollywood Supporting Actress Award," producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner with the "Hollywood Producers Award," writer/director Judd Apatow with the "Hollywood Comedy Award," actor John Hawkes with the "Hollywood Breakout Performance Award" for "The Sessions," and Quvenzhané Wallis with the "New Hollywood Award" for "Beasts of the Southern Wild." Other honorees include cinematographer Wally Pfister, editor Dylan Tichenor, production designer Sarah Greenwood and visual effects supervisors Jeff White for “The Avengers.” In addition, director Peter Ramsey's "Rise of the Guardians" will be honored with the "Hollywood Animation Award," along with additional honorees to be announced in the coming weeks.

The Hollywood Film Awards Gala Ceremony will take place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills on October 22, 2012. The event honors cherished stars and up-and-coming talent, and traditionally kicks off the film awards season with the biggest stars and top industry executives in attendance. "We are very proud to be the first stop of the awards season. In the last nine years, a total of 85 Oscar nominations and 32 Oscars were given to the honorees of the Hollywood Film Awards," said de Abreu.

Last year's awards show reached a total TV audience of more than 41 million media impressions, in addition to more than 300 million online and print readers' impressions.

Aside from celebrating accomplishments on screen, the Hollywood Film Awards established the "Hollywood Gives Back" program to expand and continue highlighting and assisting important local and national charities to raise funds. Over the years, the Hollywood Film Awards has contributed to such charities as the following: The Art of Elysium, Artists For Human Rights, Artists for Peace and Justice, MatchingDonors.com, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, the Enough Project, and Variety The Children's Charity of So. CA, among others. Further, the Hollywood Film Awards selects individuals to be recipients of their "Hollywood Humanitarian Awards" in recognition of their contribution to the betterment of their communities or society at large. Prior recipients include Nobel Peace Prize winner and ex-President of East Timor, Dr. Jose Ramos-Horta, Nobel Laureate Jody Williams, Father Rick Frechette, and actor and activist Sean Penn.


ABOUT QUENTIN TARANTINO
With his vibrant imagination and dedication to richly layered storytelling, Quentin Tarantino has established himself as one of the most celebrated filmmakers of his generation. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, Tarantino's World War II epic, assembled a renowned international cast and was a critical and box office sensation, garnering numerous awards, including six BAFTA nominations, ten Critics Choice nominations, four Golden Globe nominations and eight Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Achievement in Directing.

Prior to INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, Tarantino thrilled audiences with acclaimed favorites RESERVOIR DOGS, JACKIE BROWN, KILL BILL VOL. 1 & KILL BILL VOL. 2, and GRINDHOUSE. Tarantino also co-wrote, directed and starred in PULP FICTION, which won numerous critics' awards, a Golden Globe and Academy Award® for Best Screenplay, and the Palme D'Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. Tarantino's next film is the highly anticipated DJANGO UNCHAINED, featuring an all-star cast that includes Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Kerry Washington and Samuel L. Jackson, and will be released in theaters on Christmas Day.

Review: "Trading Places" is Timeless (Remembering Denholm Elliot)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 83 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Trading Places (1983)
Running time: 116 minutes (1 hour, 56 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR: John Landis
WRITERS: Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod
PRODUCER: Aaron Russo
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Robert Paynter (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Malcolm Campbell
COMPOSER: Elmer Bernstein
Academy Award nominee

COMEDY

Starring: Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche, Denholm Elliot, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kristin Holby, and Paul Gleason

The subject of this movie review is Trading Places, a 1983 comedy film and satire from director John Landis. The film stars Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy as a snobbish commodities trader and a streetwise con artist, respectively, who plot revenge against two conniving millionaires who cruelly use them in a personal wager.

Rare is the comedy film that enjoys success across a broad spectrum of viewer types and still remain popular even two decades after its initial release. That is exactly the case with director John Landis’s buddy, comic caper Trading Places.

Mortimer (Don Ameche) and Randolph Duke (Ralph Bellamy), millionaire commodity brokers, have made a bet. Randolph believes that he can take a common criminal off the streets, Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy), and make him into a successful businessman, the old nature vs. environment/nurture. Mortimer disagrees, siding with nature, and the brothers bet one dollar to whoever wins. To learn if even a man who has been brought up in the right environment and has gotten everything he wants can go bad, they pick their hand-chosen successor at Duke and Duke, the snobbish Louis Winthorp III (Dan Aykroyd), and frame him for a few crimes. He loses his job and winds up in jail. The Dukes give Billy Ray Louis’s home and job at Duke and Duke. When Billy Ray accidentally discovers the wager, the wily young con artist joins Louis, Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis) a hooker with a heart of gold who has befriended Louis, and Louis’s butler Coleman (Denholm Elliot) to turn the tables on the two callous Duke Brothers.

One of the things that makes this film so much fun is that it plays upon broad socio-economic stereotypes that are very familiar to audiences. What makes these almost stock characters work so well is a combination of excellent comic actors and a good comedic script. Dan Akyroyd is a very good actor, but he is mostly known as a comedian; combine good acting with a great sense of comic timing, and you have a great performance.

Eddie Murphy’s star as a movie actor was rapidly rising at this point in his career, but he was already a quite accomplished player in the cast of “Saturday Night Live.” The Murphy here is still the brash, streetwise, fast talker bursting with the kinda of “black comedy” that both black and white audiences love – you know, the sassy and mouthy Negro who always has a come back or something smart-alecky to say. That Murphy is mostly gone and rarely makes a film appearance now almost 20 years into Murphy’s film career, but looking back, one can see that he makes Billy Ray Valentine both hilarious and loveable – the guy you can root for and with whom you can almost identify.

Kudos also go to longtime screen veterans Bellamy, Ameche, and Elliot for bravura performances that take stock characters and give them flavor and delightful personalities. We also get the added gem of seeing Ms. Curtis in a role that didn’t require her to run from a knife-wielding murder. Up to this point in her career, Ms. Curtis had become the new "Scream Queen" of horror films.

If you haven’t seen this film, you don’t know what you’re missing. If you’ve seen it once before, you should be at least on your tenth viewing.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1984 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score” (Elmer Bernstein)

1984 BAFTA Awards: 2 wins: “Best Supporting Actor” (Denholm Elliott) and “Best Supporting Actress” (Jamie Lee Curtis); 1 nomination: “Best Screenplay – Original” (Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod)

1984 Golden Globes, USA: 2 nominations: “Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical” and “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical” (Eddie Murphy)

New Anime Series "K" Hits Japan and North America

VIZ MEDIA LAUNCHES NEW ANIME SERIES “K” ON VIZANIME.COM

Newest Original Anime Series With Action Packed Psychic War Between Seven Kings Launches On Leading U.S. Anime Streaming Site The Same Day It Debuts In Japan

VIZ Media takes fans to an alternative world of – K - in the North American debut of the new anime series on VIZAnime.com, the company’s own website for free anime, as well as on the free, ad-supported Hulu service and the Hulu Plus subscription service (www.Hulu.com).

K will be presented in Japanese with English subtitles, and debuts in North America the same day it launches in Japan. Episode 1 is now available, and new installments of the 13-episode series will debut every Thursday.

K is set in a world where history has taken a slightly different course from the one we’re familiar with and follows the story of a young boy whose life is caught in a psychic war between seven kings. Yashiro Isana, also known as Shiro, is wanted for a crime he has no recollection of committing. He finds himself being hunted by the groups Homura, led by Mikoto Suoh, “The Red King,” and Scepter 4, led by Reisi Munakata, “The Blue King.” While on the run, another young man named Kuroh Yatogami helps him. Will this fated encounter change Shiro’s life forever?

“K is the newest anime property to be acquired by VIZ Media and we’re extremely excited to debut it on VIZAnime.com the same day as its launch in Japan,” says Brian Ige, Vice President, Animation. “K was developed by GoHands, the studio that created the cyberpunk anime film series, Mardock Scramble, and enigmatic writers’ collective GoRA Project. The highly detailed look of K’s production and its intriguing story will definitely give this new series a strong following. Don’t miss the exciting first episode!”

For more information on K and other animated titles from VIZ Media please visit www.VIZAnime.com.

Review: Original "Frankenweenie" Short and Sweet

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 187 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Frankenweenie (1984) – B&W
Running time: 27 minutes
DIRECTOR: Tim Burton
WRITERS: Leonard Ripps (from an idea by Tim Burton)
PRODUCER: Julie Hickson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Thomas Ackerman
EDITOR: Ernest Milano

SHORT/SCI-FI/COMEDY with elements of horror

Starring: Shelley Duvall, Daniel Stern, Barret Oliver, Joseph Maher, Roz Braverman, and Domino (Sofia Coppola)

Back in 1984, Tim Burton made a delightful little film short entitled, Frankenweenie, for Disney. Disney didn’t like the offbeat story and refused to release the film. However, after Burton had a hit film with Beetle Juice and landed the gig to direct Batman (1989), Disney released the film on videocassette in the late 80’s.

The film retells the Frankenstein story from a child’s perspective with gentle humor and simplicity. When his pet dog Sparky is hit and killed by a car, Victor Frankenstein (Barret Oliver) revives Sparky Frankenstein-style using electricity. While Victor’s parents Susan (Shelley Duval) and Ben (Daniel Stern) slowly come to accept the resurrected Sparky, the neighbors aren’t so cool with it. The chase Sparky to miniature golf course where Sparky becomes a tragic hero, but can he come back again?

In Frankenweenie, Burton reveals his whimsical gothic style and his penchant for putting the unusual, the weird, and the bizarre in a suburban setting, a theme he’s revisited several times. The black and white photography and Victor’s neighborhood, which the photography turns into a “Leave it to Beaver” wonderland, are a nice fit for this gentle tale about a boy and his dog. Frankenweenie is nowhere near as good as Burton’s great films, but it is a nice and charming little oddity-lite.

6 of 10
B

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Amazon.com Options Horror Novel for Film

Amazon Studios Options First Novel

Ania Ahlborn’s Horror Novel SEED Added to Amazon Studios Development Slate

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(NASDAQ:AMZN) — Amazon Studios, the original content arm of Amazon.com, Inc., has optioned the rights to author Ania Ahlborn’s popular horror novel SEED – a top seller of 47North – the science fiction, fantasy, and horror imprint of Amazon Publishing.

Amazon Studios has added the project to its development slate and will begin testing various big screen adaptations of the spine-tingling Southern gothic suspense tale of an ordinary man with a demon on his back. The move to option a novel in circulation is a first for Amazon Studios, which up to this point has optioned only movie scripts and episodic series projects submitted to Amazon Studios.

“Our primary objective at Amazon Studios is to develop great, commercial projects that our customers love,” said Roy Price, Director, Amazon Studios. “Ania Ahlborn’s SEED has been a top seller for Amazon Publishing’s 47North so we already have a sense of the mainstream attraction of the story and are excited to keep the project in-house for movie development.”

Released in mid-2011 as a self-published title, SEED was quick to gain recognition and praise among lovers of horror. Called ‘bold,’ ‘daring,’ and ‘unflinching,’ SEED reached the #1 spot on Amazon’s bestselling horror list by nothing more than word-of-mouth. SEED was re-released in 2012 after Ahlborn restructured certain plot points and added over six thousand words to the manuscript.

Amazon Studios recently hosted a trailer contest allowing fans the opportunity to create the official SEED book trailer and awarded $3,000 to the winning trailer “Grinning Demons,” as selected by the author Ania Ahlborn. Ahlborn’s second book, The Neighbors, comes out November 27.


About SEED
With nothing but the clothes on his back—and something horrific snapping at his heels—Jack Winter fled his rural Georgia home when he was still just a boy. Watching the world he knew vanish in a trucker’s rearview mirror, he thought he was leaving an unspeakable nightmare behind forever. But years later, the bright new future he’s built suddenly turns pitch black, as something fiendishly familiar looms dead ahead.

When Jack, his wife Aimee, and their two small children survive a violent car crash, it seems like a miracle. But Jack knows what he saw on the road that night, and it wasn’t divine intervention. The profound evil from his past won’t let them die…at least not quickly. It’s back, and it’s hungry; ready to make Jack pay for running, to work its malignant magic on his angelic youngest daughter, and to whisper a chilling promise: I’ve always been here, and I’ll never leave.

About 47 North
For avid readers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, 47North offers a wide array of new novels and cult favorites, from urban fantasies and space operas to alternate histories and supernatural horror.

About Amazon Studios
Amazon Studios is Amazon’s content development division that uses audience feedback to develop great, original entertainment customers will love. Since its launch in November 2010, more than 10,000 movie scripts and 1,800 series pilot scripts have been submitted to Amazon Studios. Currently, 21 film projects and seven series are in development. For more information about Amazon Studios, visit http://studios.amazon.com.

About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Kindle Paperwhite is the most-advanced e-reader ever constructed with 62% more pixels and 25% increased contrast, a patented built-in front light for reading in all lighting conditions, extra-long battery life, and a thin and light design. The new latest generation Kindle, the lightest and smallest Kindle, now features new, improved fonts and faster page turns. Kindle Fire HD features a stunning custom high-definition display, exclusive Dolby audio with dual stereo speakers, high-end, laptop-grade Wi-Fi with dual-band support and dual-antennas/MIMO for 40% faster throughput than other tablets, enough storage for HD content, and the latest generation processor and graphics engine—and it is available in two display sizes—7” and 8.9”. The all-new Kindle Fire features a faster processor for 40% faster performance, twice the memory, and longer battery life.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, www.amazon.cn, www.amazon.it, and www.amazon.es. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

Review: "The Omen" Remake is Very 666

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 126 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Omen (2006)
Running time: 110 minutes (1 hour, 50 minutes)
MPAA – R for disturbing violent content, graphic images, and some language
DIRECTOR: John Moore
WRITER: David Seltzer
PRODUCERS: Glenn Williamson and John Moore
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jonathan Sela
EDITOR: Dan Zimmerman
COMPOSER: Marco Beltrami

HORROR/DRAMA/THRILLER

Starring: Julia Stiles, Liev Schreiber, Mia Farrow, David Thewlis, Pete Postlethwaite, Giovanni Lombardo, Reggie Austin, Tonya Graves, and Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick

The subject of this movie review is The Omen, a 2006 horror thriller. This film, which is also known as The Omen: 666, is a remake of the 1976 horror film, The Omen. This remake is written by David Seltzer who also wrote the screenplay for the 1976 film.

Venerated movie critic Roger Ebert (the only writer to win a Pulitzer Prize for writing film criticism) says that the new movie, The Omen, a remake of the 1976 film of the same name, is faithful to that original. It’s been well over 25 years since I’ve seen the 1976 flick, so I can’t say with certainty. However, David Seltzer, who wrote the first film, has also written the remake, and I remember enough to say that at least this new flick creeped me out just as the original did.

Robert Thorn (Liev Schreiber) is a young American diplomat in Rome, awaiting the birth of his first child by his wife, Katherine (Julia Stiles). He arrives at the hospital, where the presiding priest, one Father Spiletto (Giovanni Lombardo), informs Robert that Katherine had an extremely difficult delivery, during which their infant son died. The priest also tells him that Katherine doesn’t know that their child died. He reports to Robert that another woman delivered the same time Katherine went into labor, and while that mother died during delivery, her son survived. Father Spiletto implores Robert to take this other infant as his own son, but not tell Katherine that this isn’t her infant. God won’t mind this little deception, the priest tells Robert.

Five years later, the Thorns’ son, the mystery infant they named Damien (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick), is a brooding, peculiar child who seems to be, from the point of view of his mother, the nexus of strange events. Katherine feels detached from the child, and she insists that Robert hire a nanny to help her with the boy. Into their lives arrives Mrs. Blaylock (Mia Farrow), who seems as strange as Damien. They mostly ignore the weirdness in their lives, especially Robert, but when Father Brennan (Pete Postlethwaite), a frantic priest with a haunted air and haunted look about him, continually gives Robert dire warnings about Damien, the newly minted U.S. Ambassador starts to have his own misgivings. With the help of a photographer, Keith Jennings (David Thewlis), Robert is about to discover his son’s true origins and a secret so dire that the fate of mankind may hang in the balance.

The Omen is an adult psychological thriller, a supernatural suspense story in the tradition of Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and of course the 1976 version of The Omen. Recent films of that type include such box office stumbles as End of Days, Lost Souls, and The Ninth Gate. Director John Moore takes the few changes the new movie makes to the original flick and uses them to create a creepy film with a narrative haunted by the proverbial ominous future. Known for directing commercials before helming such films as Behind Enemy Lines (2001) and Flight of the Phoenix (2004), Moore blends composer Marco Beltrami’s eerie score with his own visual gumbo of ghostly locales and engaging, but troubled characters. Moore and his crew turn their filming locations in Italy, Ireland, Croatia, and the Czech Republic into places where the supernatural is quite natural: an isolated monastery reachable only by traveling across a midst covered lake; an ancient underground Hebrew village; the forlorn mansion in which the Thorns live, and a weird Etruscan graveyard, etc.

Moore also gets superb performances from his cast, each one giving his character that something extra that makes him or her much more appealing than the standard horror movie victim. Schreiber adds of touch of Laurence Olivier circa Rebecca to Robert Thorn, while Julia Stiles is riveting and spot-on as Katherine, a mother so terrified of her child that it leads to dreams filled with terrible apparitions. Mia Farrow is the ultimate witch-hag evil nanny – all wide-eyed with intense devotion to her evil charge and a stone cold face surrounded by thick mane of hair. As for Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick as Damien, it’s scary that a child actor can play the bad seed so well. Seamus’s Damien is a soul spoiled - just pure rotten, like bad meat surrounded by an evil presence. Pete Postlethwaite and David Thewlis also strike the perfect notes in their respective supporting character parts.

I would compare The Omen to the 2005 film, The Skeleton Key. Both are entertaining supernatural thrillers aimed at an older crowd, each one at times a little illogical and having holes in both concept and execution. Good, but not great, The Omen delivers not less, but a little more than it promises.

6 of 10
B

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

NOTES:
2007 Razzie Awards: 1 nomination: “Worst Supporting Actor” (David Thewlis, also for Basic Instinct 2)

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