Oh Asylum. Asylum, Asylum, Asylum. Don’t you have any dignity? Seriously. Making money is good, but what’s the point if you’re losing your dignity in the process? Hookers and reality contestants know what I’m talking about, right? Asylum is a lot like that wife who used to give you the best sex of your life and now she just gives you a magazine to jerk off to. Trust me that analogy works. When you’re going to bed tonight you’re going to stop and realize, “Oh, I get it!”
So, in one of their most obvious, uh, what’s a nicer word for f*****g rip-off? In one of their most obvious derivations, “666: The Child” is about a killer werewolf who is stalking h***y teenagers in a camp site–do I have to explain the plot? Think “The Omen”, and you’re there. A friend of mine from another website really has laid into them over the past year, and I see why he does. I wish they’d put as much effort into their original films as they did with the carbon copies. But then again, a complete derivation is no different than another shitty remake in the end.
After a plane crashes in the forest (commercial or private?) which is surprisingly covered by a news camera while it crashes, a young boy who is a sole survivor is discovered and taken into an orphanage and adopted by a young couple. Donald, as he’s called, seems innocent at first (don’t all kids?) but soon the husband Scott begins to see dead nuns along the road, and then the body count begins rising, and eventually people begin connecting the dots. “666: The Child” had the chance to really become a very original spin on a recycled story, and in the past thirty years subsequent to the release of “The Omen”, all the imitations have been done, so this film never really covers new ground. The plot, in spite of the dramatic tone it attempts, is awfully campy, and it’s hilarious when Donald’s victims bite it. In “The Omen”, Damien’s purpose was clear. He’d enter this Earth, take down all his opponents, and proceed to taking over the world, but here Donald is really just a whiny brat with superpowers.
In the beginning his doctor and nurse go off to have sex in the stock room and he murders them. Why? It’s never explained. They posed no threat to his mission, so why murder them? And who has a stock room in their hospital room? It’s never clear what Donald is supposed to be doing really, or what his mission is. But all we learn is that he’s rather touchy and murders anyone who gives him a hard time. He offs a dentist and his nurse, his surrogate grandfather, and the body count and obligatory blood splatter continues on. But the script is so utterly inconsistent and ridiculous that you can’t help but laugh at everything that goes on here.
In the opening, Donald survives the crash unharmed, and no one questions why, and in spite of hearing ambulance sirens in the distance, is taken away from the crash site by a news crew in a news truck. How many lapses in logic did you spot in that sentence? The reason why the news couple adopts Donald in the first place also remains a mystery. If you’re the devil, or the antichrist, wouldn’t it make sense to manipulate a powerful couple like a senator or millionaire as we saw in “The Omen” films rather than just a news reporter, and a cameraman? And the low budget is never an excuse for this because the plot holes could be answered by one simple line of dialogue between characters.
And of course in spite of the obvious allusions to “The Omen” such as the demonic child, the distraught parents and witnesses being offed, there’s also a nanny; an evil nanny, who so happens to worship Donald, and has plans for him, and even explains in a dramatic gleam that she’s there to “help him”. And she’s sexy, too, which gives the director a an excuse to show her topless. Donald (Boo Boo Stewart) is basically a one-dimensional character who really doesn’t do much, nor does he convey much mystique. The extent of the child’s character is basically him looking in space with a stone cold grimace while the adults act around him (I use the term “act” loosely), and then Scott must explore who his son Donald is, with grim results. Why was the nanny there at all? What purpose did it serve to break the couple apart? And whatever commentary the script tries to make really just comes off as softball and weak. Spoofing Martha Stewart? The press? Who hasn’t done that already?
Asylum could have taken this concept and added their own twist to it, rather than really just copying the basic themes and changing the characters around. And as you can guess, the climax ends exactly like “The Omen” (the father Scott even looks up and screams “Forgive me!”), except with one of the most ridiculous plot holes ever explored in a film. “666: The Child” is awful, not because of its obvious faults in production, but because it rather shamelessly rips whole scenes from “The Omen” without ever really caring if its more keen audiences notice, because it’s a quick cash-in. Asylum, you should be embarrassed.
