irector John Moore (Flight of the Phoenix) indicates complete seriousness about his remake of "The Omen" in the opening scenes, wherein a group of Catholic cardinals brief the pope about the evil signals – the space shuttle Columbia disaster, the World Trade Center attacks and Hurricane Katrina - to make us think that Armageddon is just around the corner (and we will surely be led there by a little boy with blue eyes). These unsettling images, flashed onscreen at the beginning, horrify us because they are creepily real.

While screenwriter Dan McDermott’s "update" of David Seltzer's original screenplay is nearly a scene-for-scene replay of the 1976 shocker, the movie relies on horror movie clichés, creating lukewarm suspense. Moore -with his production designer, Patrick Lumb, and cinematographer, Jonathan Sela - filmed mostly in Prague to give the movie a rich, dark sheen.

Soon, we’re introduced to diplomat Robert Thorn (Liev Schreiber in the Gregory Peck role) and his wife, Kate, (Julia Stiles in the Lee Remick role) after she has given birth to their first child. At a Catholic hospital in Rome, Thorn learns that his wife suffered while in childbirth. The baby was lost. But a priest suggests "a little deception." They should raise a baby whose “very healthy'' mother died in the childbirth. Would Robert be interested in a little baby bait-and-switch? Being a diplomat, he can't say no, and agrees to this strange proposal. "Give your love to the living," the priest says.

As Robert Thorn's diplomatic career advances, people start dying in the most horrific ways - accidents that have that Final Destination touch. Damien's nanny (Amy Huck) outstandingly hangs herself at Damien’s birthday party. Thus comes the arrival of a new nanny, the very polite but seriously imbalanced Mrs. Baylock (Mia Farrow, the mother of Rosemary's Baby). Watch out for her; she’s not very menacing at first, but things change rapidly.