In this day and age, it seems that we're destined to be flooded with an endless deluge of remakes, reboots, reimaginings and even rehashes of classic movies- including conversions of old TV shows into movies.  I have noticed however, that the horror genre seems to be suffering the heaviest torrents of revisitations.  With that realization, I'll be doing a "double bill" today... Let's start with the 1976 release of " The Omen ", shall we?  The premise is interesting and simple enough to provide potential directions for storytelling: A prominent politician's pregnant wife suffers a loss when the son dies shortly after birth.  Before she can find out, the politician agrees to subsitute a newborn orphan for his own... Too bad that the son is the spawn of Satan... The acting is a little lifeless at moments, but in general was pretty good.  I enjoyed Gregory Peck as Robert Thorn- the politician, and Lee Remick as his wife was nice to look at, though her ac...

Religion sometimes has a huge influence on horror movies- especially when it involves Satan. So, one could expect religious influences to appear in the music from such movies.  1976's " The Omen " is a perfect example of that influence- and is this week's horror movie theme to be enjoyed and commented on. Not many horror movie themes have actual titles.  The theme from " The Omen " is different in this regard.  This Jerry Goldsmith created piece was title " Ave Satani ".  It is essentially a "Satanized" version of the Latin Mass- and was one of the few non-English songs to be nominated for an Oscar. It's short, but memorable, and sets up the tone of the movie perfectly.  The religious sound of the Gregorian style chanting is familiar (especially to those of Roman Catholic upbringing), but is just off centered enough to create a dissonance that makes you uneasy.  The low tone of the melody, and the slow, deep sound of ...

In this day and age, it seems that we're destined to be flooded with an endless deluge of remakes, reboots, reimaginings and even rehashes of classic movies- including conversions of old TV shows into movies.  I have noticed however, that the horror genre seems to be suffering the heaviest torrents of revisitations.  With that realization, I'll be doing a "double bill" today... Let's start with the 1976 release of " The Omen ", shall we?  The premise is interesting and simple enough to provide potential directions for storytelling: A prominent politician's pregnant wife suffers a loss when the son dies shortly after birth.  Before she can find out, the politician agrees to subsitute a newborn orphan for his own... Too bad that the son is the spawn of Satan ... The acting is a little lifeless at moments, but in general was pretty good.  I enjoyed Gregory Peck as Robert Thorn- the politician, and Lee Remick as his wife was nice to look at, t...