Editorials
Revisiting the B-Movie Bliss of ‘Mutant Chronicles’
Warhammer 40,000 may not have invented the Grimdark genre, as one could argue that writers like Michael Moorcock have been planting the seeds for these mean-spirited narratives as far back as the early 60s, but Games Workshop’s star IP sure as hell popularized it. After all, nothing explains the appeal of Grimdark media quite as succinctly as the franchise’s iconic tagline: “in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war”.
That’s why it makes sense that Warhammer would go on to inspire countless other fictional universes besieged by endless conflict, with one of the most notable of these being Target Games’ Swedish RPG Mutant Chronicles. First published back in 1993, this tabletop setting (which followed WWII-inspired combatants in a dieselpunk future controlled by warring corporations fighting off a mutant apocalypse) would eventually spawn a larger franchise, including books, video games, and a successful line of miniatures. Naturally, this international success wouldn’t go unnoticed by Hollywood, and plans for a movie began as far back as 1995.
Unfortunately, as is often the case in showbiz, the stars simply didn’t align at the right moment, and it was only in the late 2000s that a cheaper version of the project would get off the ground years after the heyday of the once-popular franchise. However, while 2008’s Mutant Chronicles adaptation was originally released to scathing reviews and a pathetic box-office run, I’d argue that time has been kind to this unabashedly cheesy B-movie, which has slowly but surely been accumulating fans over the years as online audiences continue to search for Grimdark entertainment.
With that in mind, I think this is the perfect moment to look back on Simon Hunter’s Mutant Chronicles and try to understand why it’s connecting with more viewers now than back when it was originally released.
Funnily enough, the 90s version of Mutant Chronicles was initially to be directed by John Carpenter on a $40 million budget. Unfortunately, a series of dark sci-fi flops led to this blockbuster adaptation being shelved until producers decided to revise the project into something a little more market-friendly (complete with a G.I. Joe-inspired toy line and tie-in videogames). This lighter iteration of the film also fell through when the original producers went bankrupt, and it was only in 2005 that an independent version of the film was finally greenlit on a budget of $25 million.
Scottish filmmaker Simon Hunter actually created a standalone 7-minute teaser for the project in order to attract investors, with the director then enlisting Event Horizon alumni Phillip Eisner to write a full screenplay – with both artists being fans of the original tabletop game. Despite the heavily reduced budget, the movie still managed to attract plenty of recognizable talent. Not only would the flick be led by fan-favorite thespians Thomas Jane and Ron Perlman, but it would also boast special appearances by veterans like John Malkovich and even Event Horizon actor Sean Pertwee.
Mostly shot on studio lots in a manner similar to Zack Snyder’s visual-effects-heavy 300, Mutant Chronicles would finally get a limited theatrical release in Europe in 2008 before making its way onto VOD and home video in North America in 2009. In the finished film, we follow a diverse ensemble of soldiers from the 28th century (including Thomas Jane as the badass Sergeant Hunter) as they’re encouraged by religious leader Brother Samuel (Perlman) to set aside their differences and embark on a suicide mission to destroy an alien machine that turns wartime casualties into deadly mutants.
Even at a first glance, the premise here is already very reminiscent of classic role-playing campaigns (with the main conflict existing as an excuse to unite a party of diverse characters representing the world’s different factions against a common enemy), but it’s really the world-building that makes Mutant Chronicles such an enjoyable time despite the low production value.
I may not be a fan of the cheap visual effects and occasional digital blood splatters, but I appreciate how the entire thing feels aesthetically coherent and really sells the idea of a Grimdark future where the horrors of previous world wars have returned with a vengeance. From the vintage military outfits to cinematography clearly inspired by wartime period pieces, Hunter’s film manages to immerse viewers in a familiar yet nightmarish world even when it’s obvious that we’re looking at several layers of green screen composites.
Of course, it’s the cast that really brings the world of Mutant Chronicles to life, with Jane making for a predictably compelling leading man and Perlman being allowed to ham it up with a terribly inconsistent (yet incredibly entertaining) Scottish accent. As a bonus for die-hard fans, some of the film’s warriors – such as Max Steiner (Benno Fürmann) and Sergeant Hunter himself – had already appeared in previous Mutant Chronicles media before showing up in the movie. I’d also like to give a shout-out to Devon Aoki’s memorable performance, with the underrated actress really standing out as a badass soldier (and single mother) that you want to see succeed in this brutal mission.
While the excessive digital blood splatters and obnoxious color filters may feel a little dated, I’d argue that Mutant Chronicles more than makes up for its aesthetic flaws with good old-fashioned cinematography and clever blocking. Some of the shots here feel like comic-book panels come to life, and the monster effects are given plenty of time to shine.
Speaking of monsters, the mutants here feel like a combination of Tolkienesque Orcs and Romero-inspired zombies, with the unstoppable hordes actually being depicted as a legitimate threat rather than cannon fodder meant to make our heroes look good. I also appreciate how much of their carnage is brought to life through practical gore effects – though it would have been cool to see more variations on their warped design.
The Grimdark style of storytelling obviously isn’t for everyone, and I understand that some viewers might groan at over-the-top edgy moments like when Hunter shoots people mid-conversation or when random side characters experience gratuitous trauma just to help establish the flick’s dire mood, but this exaggerated mean streak is exactly what this genre is known for. In fact, Mutant Chronicles is one of the few movies to really commit to the Grimdark style, warts and all, and while this is likely why it was panned back in ’08, it’s also the reason why folks now remember it as a fun little homage to edgy tabletop games.
Sure, the movie could have used a couple more million dollars to build better sets and maybe finance a more thrilling finale, but if you’re a fan of the genre who’s willing to stomach bad effects in order to have a good time, you’ll find that Mutant Chronicles is a breath of fresh air in a world where even Warhammer has been toned down in order to appeal to a wider audience.
So if you’re ever in the mood for a monster movie that mixes the wartime thrills of Saving Private Ryan with tabletop RPG logic, I’d highly recommend checking out Mutant Chronicles!
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.
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