Editorials
Ivan Reitman’s ‘Evolution’ – Celebrating 20 Years of the Other Ghostbusters
No matter how you feel about the sequels, reboots and spin-offs, there’s no denying that the first Ghostbusters captured lightning in a bottle in a way that not even the original team could replicate. Sometimes, the right people pop up at the right place and the right time, and the universe gifts us with an unforgettable classic. Of course, this hasn’t stopped studios from trying to rekindle that magic with similar projects, and while we were all hyped for Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, last year also marked the 20th anniversary of Ivan Reitman‘s other attempt at a spiritual successor to his most iconic franchise. Naturally, I’m talking about the underrated 2001 monster movie, Evolution.
Originally envisioned by screenwriter Don Jakoby as a hyper-serious horror/sci-fi thriller, Evolution gradually shifted into a completely different direction once Reitman came onboard the project. Inspired by the premise of a group of friends banding together to face an otherworldly threat, the director saw the film as a potential Ghostbusters for the new millennium, with an updated cast of charming oddballs fighting extraterrestrial mutations instead of supernatural entities.
After a series of comedic rewrites, the studio began searching for an ensemble cast with franchise potential. Hot off the heels of The X-Files, David Duchovny was chosen as the sardonic lead that would keep the group together, with Orlando Jones becoming his best friend and partner in crime. The ever-lovable Sean William Scott was also cast as the humorous everyman of the team, with Julianne Moore rounding things out as a clumsy scientist with a heart of gold.
The finished film follows college professors Ira Kane (Duchovny) and Harry Block (Jones) as they investigate a mysterious meteorite that crashes in the Arizona desert. Unfortunately for us humans, the meteorite contains microscopic life-forms that rapidly adapt to their new environment, going through millions of years of evolution in just a few hours as they mutate into monstrous creatures hell-bent on taking over the planet. Knowing that an extinction-level event is at hand, Ira and Harry team up with the CDC’s Dr. Allison Reed (Moore) and the aspiring firefighter Wayne Grey (Scott) in order to study the alien menace and devise a plan to save the world, all while butting heads with an inept military response.
I’m still mad that we didn’t get more of this!
The alien invasion setup may sound familiar, but the formula is solid enough for Evolution to work as a light-hearted sci-fi romp with plenty of impressive monster designs and memorable character moments. Despite wearing its intentions on its sleeve as it attempts to become “the next Ghostbusters“, the movie actually manages to stand on its own as a retro-styled comedy with an early-2000s twist, and I think it’s a shame that no one really one talks about it anymore.
From silly moments like watching the aliens reach a primate-like level of intelligence to fun set-pieces like when the crew attempts to bring down a mutated dragon in the middle of a crowded shopping mall, I’d argue that the movie is at its best when reveling in its own absurdity. Hell, I know I’ll never forget that bizarre finale where dandruff shampoo miraculously saves the day in what can only be described as a cellular enema.
Ivan Reitman’s Evolution admittedly stumbles during its transparent attempts at recreating Ghostbuster’s success (even Dan Aykroyd makes an appearance and the poster’s three-eyed smiley face is obviously meant to emulate that film’s highly marketable anti-ghost logo), but the insanely charming cast helps to smooth out most of the rough edges. The dated jokes and familiar tropes are no match for Jones and Duchovny’s bromance, and even Sean William Scott gets the chance to shine with ridiculous amounts of “dudebro” energy. Dr. Reed is the only character that really suffers from the unpolished script, with Moore being relegated to lazy gags despite her legendary acting chops.
Unfortunately, there’s also the matter of the film’s heavy use of early-2000s CGI during its action sequences. While there are a handful of practical puppets on display here, and the designs are all pretty clever, the majority of the monsters are brought to life via wonky computer graphics that haven’t aged all that well. Thankfully, the movie’s playful tone keeps the effects from detracting from the experience, though I wish they had gone with the original plan of having the alien’s final form be a fleshy humanoid kaiju instead of a gigantic cell.
Where Product Placement and Deus Ex Machinas meet!
Personally, I think Evolution was a single draft (and maybe a Ray Parker Jr. song) away from being a classic, but I still appreciate how it lovingly emulates classic monster movies for a new crowd. From setting the story in the Arizona desert to having a bumbling military force be saved by outcast scientists, the film really nails the 50s sci-fi tropes without feeling like a parody. Hell, even the “real science” on display here is about as accurate as it was in those movies, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a possible sequel involved radiation turning lizards and insects into giant monsters.
Despite spawning a short-lived animated series, it’s a real shame that Evolution never took off as a franchise. This could have been one of those rare cases where a sequel with already-established characters could have surpassed the original, introducing even wackier monster-movie hijinks with each new installment. They may not be everyone’s favorite team of paranormal exterminators, but I could have watched hours of Jones and Duchovny bickering about space creatures and the periodic table, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m not the only one.
As it stands, Ivan Reitman’s Evolution doesn’t quite live up to its aspirations as a proper successor to the original Ghostbusters, but it definitely stands on its own as a highly entertaining throwback created by a team that clearly cared about the project. It may not have aged as gracefully as its inspirations, but I’d recommend this one to any fan of the light-hearted monster flicks of yesteryear. At the very least, you’ll learn that Head & Shoulders can be useful during an alien invasion, and with the way things are right now, it’s always good to be prepared.
Of the three films that make up the Diabolical Trinity of classic religious horror films—Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), and The Omen (1976)—The Omen is the most purely entertaining.
While Rosemary’s Baby digs into the societal shifts of the 60s and The Exorcist explores spiritual tensions between faith and doubt in an ever-shifting world, The Omen seems most interested in just telling a thrilling story. It achieves this by blending two major trends of the 1970s, the devil movie and the paranoid thriller, into one crackling adventure yarn. In the process, The Omen has sparked fear and curiosity about what could happen in the “end times” if such events are to occur.
After seeing The Exorcist, producer Harvey Bernhard contacted writer David Seltzer and said something along the lines of, “Hey, write me one of those.” Seltzer, having never read the Bible, thought it would be an interesting challenge, so, according to various interviews, he read the Bible and several commentaries in search of a story. Then he stumbled upon a passage in the book of Revelation, the image of a great Beast rising out of the sea, that sparked his imagination. In the commentaries, he found that the sea represented politics in some interpretations of the text, and he began building his story on that foundation.
Seltzer has told this story often, and I am inclined to believe him. However, from there, much of the theological-sounding lore of The Omen was created purely by Seltzer. Many of the ideas surrounding The Antichrist in the film appear to be drawn much more from the pop-eschatology sensation of the 1970s, The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsay, than any Biblical source.
Lindsay’s book was the bestselling nonfiction book of the 1970s and re-popularized views of the “last days” that had been dying along with fundamentalism for decades, namely Dispensationalism, Millennialism, and the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. In dispensationalism, history is broken into several epochs of time (or dispensations) that culminate in the return of Christ and his thousand-year (millennial) reign.
Before this return, a seven-year Tribulation will occur in which the Antichrist comes to power and persecutes all who oppose him, culminating in a battle between the forces of good and evil at the valley of Megiddo, usually called Armageddon. Of course, in this worldview, the true believers in Jesus will be lifted out, or raptured, before all this takes place. Since the publication and popularity of The Late Great Planet Earth, this has been the prominent belief in Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christian circles, though Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and mainline Protestant denominations largely reject it.
Lindsay also did something unique that had not been the case even in dispensationalist circles before him—he posited that the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948 started the countdown to Armageddon. Fans of the film will immediately realize where Seltzer ran with this idea in the first line of the poem created for the movie: “When the Jews return to Zion…”
Damien Thorn and the Creation of Horror’s “Innocent Villain”
Seltzer’s next inspiration focused on the idea of the Antichrist as a child, what he would call the film’s “innocent villain.” In watching The Omen, it is readily apparent that Damien Thorn (Harvey Stephens) does not really do anything evil beyond a bit of normal kid mischief. Even the moment in which Damien knocks Kathy Thorn (Lee Remick) over a second-floor railing can be read as an accident orchestrated by Damien’s diabolically connected nanny, Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw). The film takes this idea of the innocent villain a step further by casting Gregory Peck, best known for playing arguably the greatest father in film history, Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), as Damien’s earthly father, an element that greatly satisfied Seltzer.
The New Testament itself says very little about the Antichrist and certainly nothing about his childhood. In fact, the word antichrist is used twice (1 John 2:18 and 2 John 7 for the curious) and refers to groups of people, not a particular person. There is also a passage in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 in which the writer (usually attributed to Paul) discusses “The Man of Lawlessness” who will “exalt himself over everything that is called God” and “proclaim himself to be God.”
Then there is the Beast of Revelation chapter 13 with “seven heads and ten horns” that Seltzer latched onto, which has been interpreted in a multitude of ways over the centuries. Powerful people throughout history, from Charlemagne, various Popes during the Protestant Reformation era, Napoleon and Hitler, to modern politicians, including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, have all had the label placed on them by various circles. Even religious leaders like Billy Graham have not escaped being called the Antichrist.
Lindsay and modern dispensationalists are certain the Antichrist will be a 21st-century individual as they are equally certain that the Rapture, Tribulation, and return of Christ are imminent, likely within their lifetime. Many scholars and theologians, however, interpret these passages as symbolic representations of the Roman Empire and the first-century Caesars who persecuted, tortured, and murdered Christians and Jews who refused to submit to Imperial rule and worship them as gods. For example, that the Beast from the sea in Revelation has seven heads is symbolic of the famous seven mountains of Rome, with the 10 horns referring to rulers and magistrates of the Empire.
But this is all really of no matter to Seltzer and the story of The Omen. Instead of being concerned with any historical or theological accuracy, he instead built his own lore, which sends Robert Thorn and photographer Keith Jennings (David Warner) on a globetrotting investigation into the nature of the Antichrist and how to stop him. Some of this lore includes the child being born of a jackal, the reaction of animals, the protective cult that arises around Damien, the daggers of Megiddo, and maybe most interesting of all, the peculiar flaws in Jennings’s photographs that presage the ways certain individuals will die.
All these aspects are where the paranoid thrillers come in, as films like Blow Up (1966), Z (1969), The Conversation (1974), The Parallax View (1974), 3 Days of the Condor (1975), and All the President’s Men (1976) were all the rage at the time. Especially in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the idea of journalists (like Jennings) as ordinary heroes who could bring down the powerful, nefarious forces in the world was exactly what audiences craved. And what greater hidden evil force was there than the Devil? This is also why the device of the daggers of Megiddo is so important to a movie like this. If Damien is indeed the Antichrist, there must be a way to stop him, though in the Biblical text, the only power capable of destroying the Devil is God Himself.
The Mark of the Beast, 666, and the Film’s Most Famous Religious Symbolism
The piece of lore created for the movie with the most solid Biblical grounding is the Mark of the Beast. Revelation describes a mark on the forehead or hand of those who worship the Beast and his image. Again, this is symbolic language differentiating those who belong to the power of the Roman Empire and those who belong to Christ, who have the Mark of the Lamb. In Seltzer’s hands, the mark is very literal, a birthmark that is borne by not only the Antichrist but all his followers, meaning they are marked from before birth as belonging to Satan, and there is no escaping it. This is all rather distressing to the priest Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton), who betrays his mark by warning Thorn about Damien and pays the price by memorably being impaled by a spire that falls from a church steeple after being struck by lightning.
Why is the mark three sixes? Again, this is drawn from a passage in Revelation that states that the Beast can be identified by calculating his number. In Biblical scholarship, this is believed to be the sum of the name of a man transferred into Hebrew numerology, a practice in which each Hebrew letter also represents a number. Using this method, the number of the name Caesar Nero, which many believe to be the most logical choice, is six hundred sixty-six. In the film and elsewhere, this number is changed to three individual sixes. According to the film, this represents the Diabolical Trinity (a designation also unique to the film) made up of Satan, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. That Damien carries this unique birthmark under his hair convinces Robert that the child is the Antichrist, and it’s up to him to destroy him.
Part of what makes The Omen great is its ambiguity. Damien could be the Antichrist, or he could be at the center of a series of coincidences. Director Richard Donner stated in interviews that he believed Robert Thorn had gone insane by the end of the film, which, to Donner, is the only explanation for why Thorn would attempt to kill an innocent child. However, that enigmatic smile in the final shot suggests that Damien does embody a spirit of great evil. The sequels, however, all but erase this ambiguity.
In audiences, The Omen sparked a renewed interest in the concept of the Antichrist and the dispensationalist interpretation of the end times that continues to echo throughout the last five decades. Around the time of the film’s release, even Elvis Presley was photographed brandishing a paperback copy of Seltzer’s novelization. Dispensationalist authors like Hal Lindsay, Tim LaHaye, and John Hagee have made millions publishing books and giving lectures about the Antichrist and the end of the world.
The Legacy of The Omen, 50 Years Later
Though A Thief in the Night (1972) preceded The Omen in initial release, it gained quite a resurgence (along with the ability to create three sequels) in the wake of the popularity of The Omen and went on to scar the psyches of Evangelical children for decades. Hal Lindsay was also able to release a film version of The Late Great Planet Earth in 1978, complete with narration and a brief onscreen appearance from Orson Welles.
In the 1990s, the Left Behind series became a cultural phenomenon, spawning twelve books in the core series, a YA spinoff series, video games, and a movie series (2000-2005) starring Kirk Cameron. A bigger studio adaptation of the first book was released in 2014, starring Nicolas Cage. 20th Century Fox and The Omen got in on the renewed “end-of-the-world” vigor by releasing a remake of the original film on June 6, 2006. The franchise was revived once again in 2024 with The First Omen, which explores ideas of the Antichrist and the motivations of those in power in our current religious, social, and political context.
But despite all the sequels, spinoffs, rip-offs, remakes, and “end times” money grabs of the last 50 years, the original version of The Omen remains untouchable. Its greatest strength is that it seeks, first and foremost, to entertain. And it does so admirably.
After half a century, its influence can be felt in horror, the culture at large, and even in various faith circles. It is a testament to the power of story and film that, consciously or unconsciously, fans of The Omen and those who have never seen it alike are, to this very day, marked by the Beast.
You must be logged in to post a comment.