This is the house that dave broke

So it looks like I'm a little late for Satan Day. But I still thought I'd chip in with my fun trip to the cinema this evening.

I'm a big fan of the 'if it's not broke, don't fix it' philosophy but with this film you sometimes had to wonder why they bothered. It wasn't quite on par with Gus Van Sant's Psycho remake, but it was close. There is a new opening scene, but aside from that, there's possibly 2-3 minutes of scenes that weren't in the original in some form.

Throw into this mix, a particularly bad scriptwriter. Most of the lines that weren't in fact direct lifts from the first Omen felt clunky and false. Very much a touch of George Lucas syndrome (where it seems as though a line would have read much better on a page than said aloud).

The acting was variable, Liev Schrieber would have seemed a lot better if the film hadn't been so uncannily faithful to it's predecessor. But, unfortunately for him, he's expected to walk in the footsteps of Gregory Peck; a task he often seems to fall short of. Julia Stiles on the other hand really impressed me. She really fully crafts a character out of Katherine Thorne, something Lee Remick failed to do before her. A stellar supporting cast also help to keep up the quality, (I particularly liked the use of Mia Farrow, Rosemary from Rosemary's Baby, as the Mrs Baylock, the evil nanny). But this was likely to rise or fall on the casting of the character of Damien. And for me, he just didn't cut it. He had the requisite type of appearance, but whenever he tried to look menacing, I just thought his face looked like a frog.

Clearly this was only made to coincide with the date, as there was absolutely no need to remake the original. I'm saying 3 stars anyway, just because I'm a big fan of the story, even though it hadn't changed since the last time I saw it. That, and that they managed to alter the famous death scene without lessening it in any way, and ended up improving it considerably (the only way in which I'd really say this is any better than the original).