OMEN
06-06-2006, 08:43 AM
http://network.news.com.au/image/0,10114,5164477,00.jpg
Creepy ... The Omen stars Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick
THE date 6-6-6 - June 6, 2006 - is the devil's day for many Christians, and Hollywood is not letting them forget it with the release today of the horror remake The Omen.The legendary fright flick is coming out in a new version to mark the modern calendar's parallel with the triple six, the biblical number associated with Satan.
Directed by John Moore and starring Julia Stiles, The Omen revives the 1976 horror classic about a man who discovers his son to be the devil incarnate.
The boy, Damien, has a 666 birthmark on his head. "His Day Will Come", the film's publicity threatens.
The film was originally entitled "The Omen 666", playing on the designation for the devil found in the bible's Book of Revelations, also known as the Apocalypse.
"This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666," it says.But the studio 20th Century Fox pulled back from the first title. "We didn't want to overkill the 666 with the title but it's clearly going to be a big part of the promotion," Fox International's sales and strategy director Craig Dehmel told Variety in April.
But it is the latest commercial tease on Christian beliefs and superstitions to come out of Hollywood. Last month The Da Vinci Code swept into theaters worldwide on the back of a campaign taunting Christians with a nefarious alternative view of their church's history.
"Normally, a marketer is going to be very very wary about using the devil," said Robert Thompson, professor of television at Syracuse University in New York.
"But 666 has really emerged in the popular culture as a funny thing you bring up when you're talking about a kid misbehaving on the playground. You say, 'I bet this one has a 666 on his scalp.'"
"It's almost done in a joking kind of way. But at the same time it still gives people kind of creeps. I know some very rational people who get very nervous when their phone number, their licence plate has a 666 assigned."
"It makes perfect sense to release it that day," Prof. Thompson said of The Omen.
"I'm sure there are people out there who think that's evil and satanist, but that's just a marketing ploy and it's working."
June 6 has sparked other commercial ploys. Gambling website BetUS.com is offering 10-1 odds that the Apocalypse will happen on Tuesday, noting that no one can ignore recent disasters like wars, the tsunami, terrorists, nuclear threats, and earthquakes.
And the Michigan town with the abyss-mal name of Hell is throwing a party with music and prizes for the best costumes, and offering ice cream at 66 cents, according to the town website. "Come on out to Hell for a good time," it says.
Undoubtedly, too, US radio stations will be filling the airwaves with paeans to Lucifer, like the rolling Stones classic Sympathy for the Devil, the Charlie Daniels Band country hit The Devil Went Down to Georgia, or Beck's Devil's Haircut.
While much of the attention to the ominous date is just old-fashioned marketing, with the rise of conservative evangelical Christians in recent years, more attention is being paid to superstitious and tantalising biblical tales like Revelations.
This was credited for the change of the designation for the so-called highway to hell, Route 666, in the southwest United States.
The road stretching through often hellishly hot Navaho Indian territory between Arizona and Utah was renamed Route 491 in 2003, lifting the stigma around it - even though the Navahos saw no numerical significance in the old name.
But some said the change was only to solve the problem of constant theft of the old 666 signs by Satanists.
Agence France-Presse
With all thr publicity that this film has had over the last month or so it looks to be quite good and i suppose i will end up checking it out,It will be interesting to see how simular this film is to the 1976 origonal and whether this is a one of or the start of a 4 piece story the same as the origonal was..
Creepy ... The Omen stars Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick
THE date 6-6-6 - June 6, 2006 - is the devil's day for many Christians, and Hollywood is not letting them forget it with the release today of the horror remake The Omen.The legendary fright flick is coming out in a new version to mark the modern calendar's parallel with the triple six, the biblical number associated with Satan.
Directed by John Moore and starring Julia Stiles, The Omen revives the 1976 horror classic about a man who discovers his son to be the devil incarnate.
The boy, Damien, has a 666 birthmark on his head. "His Day Will Come", the film's publicity threatens.
The film was originally entitled "The Omen 666", playing on the designation for the devil found in the bible's Book of Revelations, also known as the Apocalypse.
"This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666," it says.But the studio 20th Century Fox pulled back from the first title. "We didn't want to overkill the 666 with the title but it's clearly going to be a big part of the promotion," Fox International's sales and strategy director Craig Dehmel told Variety in April.
But it is the latest commercial tease on Christian beliefs and superstitions to come out of Hollywood. Last month The Da Vinci Code swept into theaters worldwide on the back of a campaign taunting Christians with a nefarious alternative view of their church's history.
"Normally, a marketer is going to be very very wary about using the devil," said Robert Thompson, professor of television at Syracuse University in New York.
"But 666 has really emerged in the popular culture as a funny thing you bring up when you're talking about a kid misbehaving on the playground. You say, 'I bet this one has a 666 on his scalp.'"
"It's almost done in a joking kind of way. But at the same time it still gives people kind of creeps. I know some very rational people who get very nervous when their phone number, their licence plate has a 666 assigned."
"It makes perfect sense to release it that day," Prof. Thompson said of The Omen.
"I'm sure there are people out there who think that's evil and satanist, but that's just a marketing ploy and it's working."
June 6 has sparked other commercial ploys. Gambling website BetUS.com is offering 10-1 odds that the Apocalypse will happen on Tuesday, noting that no one can ignore recent disasters like wars, the tsunami, terrorists, nuclear threats, and earthquakes.
And the Michigan town with the abyss-mal name of Hell is throwing a party with music and prizes for the best costumes, and offering ice cream at 66 cents, according to the town website. "Come on out to Hell for a good time," it says.
Undoubtedly, too, US radio stations will be filling the airwaves with paeans to Lucifer, like the rolling Stones classic Sympathy for the Devil, the Charlie Daniels Band country hit The Devil Went Down to Georgia, or Beck's Devil's Haircut.
While much of the attention to the ominous date is just old-fashioned marketing, with the rise of conservative evangelical Christians in recent years, more attention is being paid to superstitious and tantalising biblical tales like Revelations.
This was credited for the change of the designation for the so-called highway to hell, Route 666, in the southwest United States.
The road stretching through often hellishly hot Navaho Indian territory between Arizona and Utah was renamed Route 491 in 2003, lifting the stigma around it - even though the Navahos saw no numerical significance in the old name.
But some said the change was only to solve the problem of constant theft of the old 666 signs by Satanists.
Agence France-Presse
With all thr publicity that this film has had over the last month or so it looks to be quite good and i suppose i will end up checking it out,It will be interesting to see how simular this film is to the 1976 origonal and whether this is a one of or the start of a 4 piece story the same as the origonal was..