The Omen (February 27 at 7 & 9:30 p.m. at the CWRU Film Society, Strosacker Auditorium)

With the smash-hit success of THE EXORCIST book-and-movie package, there was a media vogue for devil-worship and occultism in the early 1970s. In that milieu this dark script, derived from some dubious and badly-paraphrased Bible passages, got an amen-hallelujah from Hollywood, to become a big-budget supernatural production, with real money spent on its scares and an A-list cast (both were still relative rarities for the horror genre at that time). 

Though critics didn't much like THE OMEN (Michael Medved listed it in 1980 as one of the 50 worst films ever made) and the basic idea was done with more insidious chills and deeper psychological insight in ROSEMARY’S BABY, this movie was a box-office hit, spawning several sequels, and getting a remake in 2006 that nobody much remembers.

The original 1976 shocker is sturdily-built but predictable and downbeat, with its extravagant death scenes tending to stand out more so than the lugubrious narrative from director Richard Donner, who later did a much better, bang-up job with SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (and, as far as some fans are concerned, THE GOONIES).

The Goonies ( August 6th at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[THE GOONIES screens Saturday August 6th at 9:30 pm. and midnight at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Produced by Steven Spielberg, with director Richard Donner aping the blockbuster wonder-boy filmmaker’s style, THE GOONIES sort of falls in between the scales of eighties-sucks! and eighties-rulez! Maybe one has to be Of A Certain Age (or below a certain level of maturity) to enjoy it, and the thing does somehow have cult cred, though the rambunctious, noisy, pirate-themed treasure-hunt action-fantasy.is as much an overproduced piece of Hollywood “product” as any corporate kitsch Marvel Comics adaptation today.