Director – Jake Johnson, Screenplay – Ben Henry, Producers – David Michael Latt & Sherri Strain, Photography – Lucia Dias Sas, Music – Mel Lewis, Visual Effects – David Michael Latt, Mechanical Effects – Nils Allen Stewart, Makeup – Andrew Baier, Production Design – Gregory Mennino. Production Company – The Asylum.
Cast
Adam Vincent (Scott Lawson), Boo Boo Stewart (Donald), Sarah Lieving (Erika Lawson), Nora Jesse (Lucy Fir), Adam Bowman (Tony), Robert D. McEwen (Big Jake), Robert Pike Daniel (Father Francis), Allen Duncan (Father O’Herlihy), Lucy Doty (Sister Margaret McNulty), Kim Little (Mary Lou Conroy), D.C. Douglas (Dr Loring)
Plot
Scott Lawson, a former war correspondent now working as a tv news cameraman, is one of the first people at the scene of a plane crash in the Los Angeles hills. There he captures footage of a young boy walking out of the wreckage unscathed. Scott’s wife, the channel’s news anchor Erika Lawson, makes this into an emotional story. After discovering that the child Donald is an orphan, both of them feel moved to adopt him. Donald proves sweet natured. Soon however, everybody around Donald befalls mysterious accidental deaths after being left alone with him – from an abusive dentist to Scott’s father after he is co-opted into babysitting duties. Scott is drawn to follow the utterances of a crazed nun who claims that Donald is the Devil’s child and will come into his full powers on June 6th, 2006 unless he is killed.
The production company The Asylum has come to specialise in the Mockbuster – low-budget films with soundalike title that are designed to mimic big-budget titles and arrive on video shelves just before the better-known parent comes out in the hope that undiscerning patrons will rent this title mistaking it for the other. The Asylum has made the likes of a host of low-budget disaster and monster movie, in particular killer shark films following the bad movie hit Sharknado (2013).
666: The Child was designed to come out June 6, 2006, the same day as the remake of The Omen (2006) did. As such, it fairly much swipes the plot basics from the original The Omen (1976), albeit rendered on a low-budget. It follows The Omen point for plot point – the perfect couple who adopt a seemingly innocent child who is then supernaturally responsible for the deaths of everyone around them; the sinister nanny; warnings about the child’s diabolic nature from crazed priests/nuns; the father’s discovery of the 666 tattooed on the child’s body; the same twist ending where the father is shot trying to kill the child and it goes on to inherit a far greater position of power. All that is missing is the sinister dog (presumably too much cost to hire animal trainers) and the conspiracy within the Catholic Church. The DVD cover even directly copies the famous stark red and black poster for the 1976 film.
There are some changes. Seeing Gregory Peck/Liev Schreiber’s ambassador to the UK reduced to a tv newsman, former war correspondent (Adam Vincent) who has wispy designer stubble and wears his baseball cap backwards is a decided comedown. He also has a best friend (Adam Bowman) who is a beer-swilling horndog whose dialogue mostly consists of the dirty things he would like to do the nanny. The stately British mansion where most of either version of The Omen takes place is replaced by a standard home in Southern California’s Simi Valley (where the producers have shot on the cheap by using ‘private residences’ – ie. the homes of friends). Here the father’s quest across Europe to find the truth about the Devil Child takes place as no more than Adam Vincent visiting church parishes in downtown L.A.. The one positive aspect is the substitution of Billie Whitelaw/Mia Farrow’s nanny with Nora Jesse’s smartly sexy and provocative nanny who teases husband Adam Vincent, enjoying undressing in front of an open window, and then later seduces him and videotapes it.
On most counts, 666: The Child looks cheap. Most of the film is construed in terms of the provision of unconvincing gore effects. The Devil Child is left alone in his hospital bed as the nurse and a doctor go to make out in a nearby supply room whereupon a falling pipe hits the nurse on the head as she rides the man, splattering her, while the man is blasted in the face by a jet of steam. The Devil Child is taken to the dentist (D.C. Douglas) whereupon the dentist is inspired to shove the drill into the nurse’s and then his own eye. Grandfather Robert D. McEwen has his throat slit by a collapsing ceiling fan blade; Sarah Lieving trips in the bathroom and is killed as she falls through the glass of the shower; Nora Jesse gets a poker through her mouth and out the back of her head. The most laughable of these is the death of Adam Bowman where he goes into the garden shed and is promptly attacked by a lawnmower that snips his fingers off, followed by a nailgun and a buzzsaw impaled in his forehead.
BoooBoo Stewart as Donald, the Devil Child
You cannot complain too much as this is no different to the novelty deaths that featured in the original The Omen and sequels. More to the point, in The Omen all the novelty deaths at least had some point in that the people being despatched were those who stood in the way of the Devil Child’s plan; here the intention seems random more than anything such as a nurse who leaves the child alone for a few minutes to have sex or a dentist who is a bully.
The best performance in the film comes from Nora Jesse’s smartly sexy nanny where Jesse does worthwhile things to enliven the role. Of course, much of the credibility of the film sinks the moment you read the credits and discover that the titular Devil Child is played by none other than someone called Boo Boo Stewart (who later went on to some fame in the Twilight films). Truly, when it comes to actors designed to strike terror into your hearts and suggest the Devil incarnate, could they not have found someone with a more ridiculous name than Boo Boo?
There is the odd amusing lines such as the priest during the adoption who notes: “Typically those who work in the entertainment world make poor parents – have you ever seen Mommie Dearest (1981)?” before later noting that the only person he considers of moral authority in the world of entertainment is Celine Dion.
Jake Johnson is a pseudonym for director Jake Perez. Perez has also made Wild Things 2 (2004), Some Guy Who Kills People (2011) and other genre films such as Monster Island (2004), Blast Vegas (2013), Drone Wars (2016), as well as wrote America’s Deadliest Home Video (1993) and Kemper (2008). Under the name Ace Hannah, Perez also directed Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (2009) for The Asylum.
