The devil is in the detail

So I went to see the remake of the 1976 classic, The Omen. I have always liked the original, and have seen it a number of times. The remake is an almost verbatim remake, with little in the way of additions or improvements. On it’s own it may have made it, but in comparison to the original, it is a pathetic recreation. It appears much of the script was lifted directly from the original, most especially noticeable in the scene where the photographer and Mr. Thorne are in the abode of the now dead priest.

But my venom is not mainly for the production of a remake, or of the quality of the remake. It is the laziness of the post-production. Did anyone, at all, involved in the making of the film, not actually watch it once if was finished?

You may not believe me, but the gobshites who made this film managed to produce it in a way that meant the microphones are visible in the early scenes. And no, they are not actually meant to be there, they are actually part of the making of the film. At first I thought it was a brief mistake, then it kept happening, until at one point I thought the lead actress was going to get clobbered on the head. As another reviewer notes:

When it first appeared I thought…hmmm are there reporters in this scene or is that just a little flub? No… the camera pans back, no reporters in sight. Must have just been a mistake. I figured it was a small mistake. But then, it appears in the next scene, and the next scene, and the NEXT scene, and then in almost every single scene from that point on. At one point it almost HIT the actress head while shes sitting on the couch yelling at the nanny to take damien upstairs. It got so bad that you could tell the producers even tried cutting it out of some scenes. Suddenly this dark black fuzzy line appears at the top of the screen attempting to hide the mic. Unfortunatly even the black fuzzy line couldnt keep this thing out of the shot. It dips down below the line many many times. How do you take a horror movie seriously when the microphone is in all the shots??

Surely someone spotted this? Surely someone suggested removing the mics with some digital wizardry?

It spoils the entire film, and there were mumbles of questions and disbelief from other people in the cinema. Some even laughed, and I don’t blame them. There is simply no excuse for it. It’s lazy and unprofessional, it’s rule number one of film making – don’t let the audience know it’s actually make-believe.