Books and Movies

Last night I watched the 2006 remake of The Omen directed by John Moore. The film stars Liev Schreiber as Robert Thorn, an American diplomat in Rome, whose child is stillborn. In order to spare his wife (Julia Stiles) pain, he replaces the stillborn baby with an orphan child, who they name Damien. By the time Damien is five years old, Thorn has been promoted to the American ambassador to Britain, and the family are now living in London. However soon strange events start to happen around Damien. A strange priest tells Thorn that his child is evil, while his wife becomes incresingly paranoid, and people suspicious of Damien start to fall victim to strange, fatal accidents. The remake is very faithful to the 1976 original, which makes it kind of pointless really. It seems like the film was made soley so it could be released on 6th June 2006 (6/6/06). It's not bad but the film lacks a lot of the power if the original (and Liev Schreiber is no Gregory Peck).

I also watched a Japanese horror film called Ju-On: The Grudge 2, directed by Takashi Shimzu. Despite the title, this is actually the fourth film in the Ju-On series. The series revolves around the idea that when someone dies in a state of extreme rage a curse (or "ju-on") is left in the place where they die and kills whoever enters the place. The films concern a house in Tokyo haunted by the pale, lank-haired ghosts of a murdered woman and her son. In this film the ghosts haunt the crew of a TV documentary series on the supernatural which film an episode in the haunted house. The problem with the film is that is are very episodic. Basically it'll focus on one member of the crew who will go home and then be attacked and made off with by the ghosts (an effective aspect of the films is that the ghosts haunt people rather than places, it dosen't matter where they go very soon the ghosts will visit and attack either them, their loved ones, or often both). The film is effective and often really creepy, but the episodic nature soon makes it feel repetitive. It's not bad, though.

This morning my Dad came round to help me get ready for the double glazing being fitted tomorrow. I had to move around a lot of boxes and there is some cleaning to do as well. I went around to my parent's for lunch as usual. We had salmon, mashed potato and peas. The new issues of Sight and Sound and Fortean Times had arrived. Sight and Sound had a very interesting article about the controversial and prolific German film-maker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who managed to churn out over 33 feature films, over thirty theatre productions and four TV serials in a career spanning thirteen years. He was found dead in 1982, slumped over his editing table, after a life of hard work and even harder partying. My mum had also gotten me the complete series of "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman (Northern Lights (or The Golden Compass), The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass). I had been looking for Northern Lights for a few weeks for my book group, but mum had seen the set in a sale and got me all of them, which was very nice of her.