'The Omen': Bad Signs

Are the times ripe for another visit from the son of the devil? John Moore, whose remake of "The Omen" opened quite appropriately yesterday-on 6/6/06-is convinced it is.

The thriller "is very much a movie that feels right now," says Moore. "I think the world is in a very dark place at the moment, so I think this movie can speak to sort of a metaphorical version of our collective fear."

The original 1976 "Omen" starred Gregory Peck and Lee Remick as a couple who discover that their young son, Damien, is quite literally a little devil. In this version, Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles play the horrified parents. "We cast it younger purely and simply because for starters Liev and Julia are strong actors," Moore explains.

"In a story like this, you want the audience to put themselves in the position of the characters, so that's why I cast a little younger. To me it was a little more identifiable."

The first four thrillers in the franchise were beset by the "Omen curse," wherein bizarre and frightening occurrences beset the productions, including the death of the trainer on the first "Omen" at the animal center where a baboon sequence was filmed.

Moore acknowledges his "Omen" also had its share of unexplained problems. "One day we shot the scene whereby the Thorne character [Schreiber] cuts the child's hair and finally reveals the mark of the beast and realizes his son is the son of the devil. That scene also involved a choreographed fight with Mia Farrow. It was a tough day's work."

But it didn't survive. Somehow the laboratory managed to destroy every frame of footage filmed that day- some 13,500 feet. "The worst the lab and the collective crew ever heard of is losing a roll, which is 400 feet," says Moore. "The guys in the lab were in tears. They had no explanation. It had never happened before."

A large portion of "The Omen" was to have been shot in Croatia in December, but the production ran foul of the church, which didn't approve of the subject matter. "Unfortunately, they had sway over the government, and they rescinded our permits."

So the production moved to the southern Italian town of Matera. "It is probably most famous for having shot parts there of 'The Passion of the Christ'-how do you like that for irony?"

THE OMEN is now showing, from 20th Century Fox and distributed by Warner Bros. in the Philippine theaters. (Susan King, Times Staff Writer)