Just the other day I was thinking about how Hollywood likes to remake old classics and try to make them "hip" for the new age, and here we have a re-vamp of one of my favorite Satanic flicks: The Omen! Now, in Omen 2000 there are some changes. For example, Damian is no longer a little boy, but a little girl. Playing the role of Gregory Peck's character is Kim Basinger, David Warner is replaced by Jimmy Smitts, and Patrick Throughton is given "hip", "cool" new "flavor" by Christina Ricci! Oh, and Damien, err, She-Damien isn't the Antichrist, but instead a new Jesus... or something... Oh, wait a minute... this isn't a remake of The Omen after all! Sorry, just so many elements made me think it was a re-vamp, when in reality I guess it's just a clone. Honest mistake of course...
Said clone happens to be this movie: Bless the Child. 2000 was a year for major demonic fuck ups when you look back on it. Sure, the rerelease of the newly restored version of The Exorcist was reason to scream and shout and piss ourselves, but everything else was BAD! Bless the Child was just the beginning, as Lost Souls and the unloved Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 would follow, making 2000 a bad year for cinema loving Satanists.
This evilishly mediocre installment into the Big Book of Devil Movies opens with Brooklyn's favorite psychiatric nurse Maggie O'Connor (daughter to Carol?), who gets a little too much info from a woman on the bus, when she's told that the North Star has returned to the Earth, 2000 years following the spawning of it's original passenger: hippy cult leader and suspected alien from Uranus, Jeezus Kryst. Maggie's not exactly a devote Catholic anymore, so she's not really messing her shorts over the news. Then, along comes her junkie sister Jenna...
Finding the strung out Jenna in the lobby of her apartment building, Mag takes the heroin junky into her home, along with Jenna's newborn child Cody. Obviously it's no coincidence that Cody was born in the light of the Star (and probably on an issue of “The Enquirer” to boot), so let's cut the crap and get to the important shit. First of all, what kind of name is "Cody" for a girl?! Secondly, what kind of name is Cody for a Messiah?! The only person named "Cody" that I've ever known was a slack-jawed pig fucker who drove a tractor to school. Is this the kind of person the foul Christians plan on following into the new millennium?! First a hippy, now a redneck crack baby. And people wonder why I’ve turned my back on mainstream religion. In another 2 millennia, they'll be following a Chinese dude with a purple Mohawk!... and only then will I rejoin the faith.
Well, soon as Mag turns her back, Jenna swipes her cash and makes a run for it, leaving baby Cody on the proverbial doorstep for Mag to take care of. This is for the women I guess, degenerating into an Oprah Winfrey special as we discover that Mag can't bear kids anyway due to her off-kilter womb. Also, her husband was a dickhead and left her... I never liked Alec Baldwin. Now Mag's left to raise the girl on her own. Fortunately, we get to FF>> through most of that crap, jumping ahead in years where Cody is now 6 and seems to have grown a happy little birth defect. But, is it really Autism caused by her mother's unhealthy appetites whilst she was pregnant, or could it be that Cody's really the daughter of "God"? To help with her "Autism", Mag enrolls Cody into a private Catholic school, where Cody can receive the attention and caring she requires.
Recently though, the fair town of Brooklyn's seen a rash of dead kiddies showing up, each with potentially Satanic symbols burned into their arms by a group of creepy cultists. I guess all those years of after school specials and those end-of-episode public service announcements that beloved TV characters like G.I. Joe and Sailor Moon have been sticking in kids' ears for all this time are ineffective, as the kids are lured into the back of black vans by a frightening bald man. What kid is stupid enough to follow a creepy bald man into the back of an ominous looking black van!? Looks like the children of Brooklyn are even more retarded than I had once thought! The cult thugs are looking for a special little boy or girl who can perform "magic tricks", but when they can't perform they get branded and sacrificed. And if you guessed that Cody happens to be this magical little kid, then congratulations, you've passed the 3rd grade. If you didn't see this coming, then I suggest you get a lobotomy, as you will be of no use to me in my regime of horror freaks and legionnaires when we storm Hollywood... but that's enough about that little top secret coup for the time being...
Meanwhile, there's a "self help group", i.e. "cult", gaining popularity in the NYC area, called the "New Dawn". And no wonder, they're so popular; they're lead by former child TV star Eric Stark! Hmmmm, I wonder if Gary Coleman has something like this going on... If you guessed that the New Dawn is the cult that's been playing child killers as of late, then you get a gold star. Actually, since it was such an obvious point, you only get a red star... ya damn Commies. As for young Cody, her magical God powers start to surface as she enjoys making things spin with her mind. In addition to her talent for making things go round and round, Cody also shows signs of pyrokinesis as she lights candles with her mind, and the ability to heal as she resurrects a dead pigeon... this makes her the cult's next target.
While working at the hospital one hectic night, Mag meets Sherry (Ricci): an escapee from the "we loved the show so much we decided to dedicate our lives to the teachings of its pre-pubescent star" cult, who knows that Cody is really the next Jeezus. After warning Mag not to let the group get their talons on Cody, she disappears back into the shadows of the streets when Mag's got her back turned... Meg should really stop turning her back, bad things happen when she does. Elsewhere, the NYPD has brought in FBI special agent John Travis (Smitts) to work on the case of the corpsed up kiddies (sounds like a Hardy Boys mystery). What's so special about John? Well, he specializes in occult activities and he was once in training to be a priest... yep, they ripped off The Prophecy too. Facts (in the same way a guess is considered a fact) point to the cult doing these evil deeds in all likeliness because of something called "Black Easter", and since there's only a week till Easter, it looks like ol' John better figure out exactly what the Hell it is that's going on! Okay, I'm sick of talking about Jimmy Smitts, back to the little heroin girl...
Jenna comes back to disrupt Mag's perfect little life, ready to reclaim her little freak daughter. By her side is her new husband... yep, you guessed it, Eric Stark. As you also may have guessed, Mag isn't too keen on the idea, kicking the happy couple and their creepy nanny out of her home. Of course, while her back was turned, they somehow kidnapped Cody by use of the fire escape... damn, that creepy nanny must be half monkey! Again, like I said, Mag's really gotta learn to stop turning her back, because bad things happen! When Mag goes to report the kidnapping, she meets Agent John, and the two strike up what will likely be a very ugly romance after this movie's all wrapped up. Sadly for Mag though, the cops are no help, as they can't seem to get a hold on Eric themselves, so Mag takes the law into her own hands like a good silver screen heroine should. After checking out the New Dawn for herself, she's visited by Sherry once more, who gives Mag the lowdown on the cult and their plans for Cody. She tells us what we've known all along: Cody is the new Messiah and Eric is a Satanist. Using his evil powers of suggestion, he hopes to turn Cody over to his side, using her as a magic puppet to do his evil bidding. But, if he can't get Cody to turn by Easter, he'll just have to kill her. Soon after this Sherry is decapitated and Mag is left with a concussion thanks to a little cultist mugging in the subway. That reminds me, do the subway trains in Brooklyn ever actually STOP at the stations, or do they ALL just zip by, like those in the movies?!
Enough about pain in the ass subway cars, let's focus on something else. How about Mag's new hallucinations? Yeah, she starts having these bad visions of CGI demons and rats that look none too real. Everyone thinks it's because of the smack to the brain she got, but we know it's probably something deeper and more meaningful, or it could just be a bite off of The Sixth Sense. All I know is that, if I had hallucinations that were that unrealistic, I'd just label them off as another side affect of drinking dish soap and then go back to bed. After she escapes the hospital, Mag locates Eric's new apartment and drops by for a visit. When she fails to blow Eric's brains all over the spacious "flat", she gets drugged and wakes up going the wrong way down a one-way street, narrowly avoiding exploring the Hudson River with her car as the submarine. She's saved from her exploding automobile by a long haired guy who disappears afterwards. This is not unusual though, as many oddly eerie people have been popping in and out of her life, disappearing as soon as her back is turned... there's that problem again!
Now, forgive me for the break in the review, but I'd like to address the movie's subsequent break in logic. When Mag awakens, she is driving the car down the wrong way of this one way. My question is this: if she had just woken up from her haze, then how the Hell was she driving to begin with!? I mean, she wakes up and suddenly she's doing 40 in the wrong direction?! Wouldn't she have just woken up in her car, which would've been parked or, at the most, in neutral?! But then, why should the laws of physics or common sense apply to a fucking movie in this day and age.
As Mag tries to figure out a plan of attack, Eric continues to show Cody his wonderful religion, making her watch as he sets a bum on fire and then threatens to throw her off a rooftop if she doesn't agree to play the lead in Lucifer's dance of evil... aren't I metaphorical. As for the "clean" and "sober" Jenna, Eric keeps her heavily sedated on cult quality heroin. But, Mag's got one chance to save her niece turned adopted daughter: a raid on the local dental hygienist! Yes, apparently the Book of Satan requires that the evil Messiah have perfect teeth, so Eric's taking Cody to a dentist. Here is where one of my ideas about cults is dashed. Don't cults have their own group of physicians? Is this New Dawn crap forcing its followers into an HMO!? Hey man, I'm not selling all my worldly possessions and bartering away my soul for a fucking HMO! Satanism is really beginning to lose its tempting aspects.
So, Mag sneaks into the dentist's office, grabs Cody, and the two make a run for New England (though I doubt she paid for that subway ride...) so they can meet up with some nuns and get spiritual "insurance". Picture it, nuns in full church gear, brandishing brass knuckles, knives in their belts, and .44s in their pantyhose! It'd probably look something like the Ninja Nun of Night of the Demons 2! Ah, the memories of movies better than this one...
On their way past Albany, Mag and Cody are headed off by Eric's big evil limo, which also kills a cop for bonus points in my book! Sending his unwashed punks in, he grabs Cody once more and makes way to his nearby estate, where he and the New Dawn plan to fulfill their evil Easter hi-jinx. John, having spent most of his screen time looking at things and "deducing", comes up Albany way to help out Mag, bringing a flock of piggies with him. As they do so, it gets closer and closer to “go time”, as Cody will have to make a choice: love Satan or kiss breathing goodbye. While our heroes search Eric's country house, John gets mugged like an 8th Ave. prostitute, leaving Mag to be captured by Eric's conniving slacker minions. Elsewhere, to help out the effort, the nuns pray... thanx a lot sisters, I'm sure Maggie and Cody both appreciate it. But now we come down to our big finale climax at Eric's church of evil, the cops raid the place, gas everyone, the teens run around like frightened children at Micheal Jackson's house, Eric gets stabbed and Mag gets shot. Directly afterwards, Cody heals Aunt Maggie, glowing birds or angels fly around aimlessly, and John unleashes Pulp Fiction-like righteous vengeance, as he brings down a rain of lead on Eric's bad haircut! Kids, guns really DO solve all of your problems! Now everyone can live happily ever after, the end.
So many horror movies were degraded and pirated by this movie's storyline that I really can't laugh anymore or I'm going to cry like a bitch with a skinned thorax. As I stated, everything from The Omen, to Damien, to The Prophecy, to Rosemary’s Baby were unjustly victimized. And in the end, for what? This movie was unloved by many critics, especially myself and my friends. The acting was fair enough, though there could've been more Ricci and Jimmy Smitts is an asshole. The music was underdone and could've been a little more "booming" while the camera work and pace were really starting to bore the literal shit our of me for a minute there. Some of the CGI was admirable, mainly the evil nanny's Medusa scene and the arrival of Satan, but other than these the CGI was terrible. VERY badly realized demons, to the point of humor instead of terror. Speaking of humor, it's time I finished this up and went to watch "The Daily Show", so I'll do that right now... or now... now would be good... okay, bye.
DVD X-tras: Trailer; exclusive interview featurette with cast and crew (probably because no entertainment show would waste the time or money to air them); "making of" section called "Bless the Child - A Look Inside"; and commentary track with the director and FX supervisor.
If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: The Omen or Rosemary’s Baby
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
- Meh, there are so many other movies in their vein that make better party movies, either because they're made better or worse. Pass.
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