Omen

Released by: Panik House
Released on : 7/26/2005
Director: Thammarak Kamuttmanoch
Cast: Woravej Danuwong, Apichej Kittikornjaroen, Woravej Danuwong, Kavee Tanjararak, Supatchaya Reunreung
Year: 2003
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The Movie:

Written by the Pang Brothers (of Bangkok Haunted and The Eye) and directed by Thammarak Kamuttmanoch, Omen (a.k.a. Sung Horn) stars a Thai three piece boy band known as D2B in the lead roles. While normally a casting decision like that would be an instant recipe for disaster, Omen works and never once feels like a vanity project for the three pop stars turned actors.

Three young men - Dan (Woravej Danuwong), Beam (Kavee Tanjararak), and Big (Apichej Kittikornjaroen) - work in the art department of a magazine. They've been friends forever and spend a lot of their spare time hanging out and goofing off. On the day we meet them, however, things are a little more tense than usual at the office and we find them in an argument. They leave work, and on the way home each one of them has a strange encounter.

Dan drives off the road and into a tree when he sees a creepy old lady at the side of the road. She brings him into her home and helps him recover. Big gets stuck in traffic and at a stoplight is approached by a young girl selling trinkets on the street. She wants one of the toy cars he has sitting on his dash and offers to trade him a toy dog for one in return. He disagrees, but when he leaves the stoplight, finds that somehow one of his toy cars has been replaced with that very same toy dog. Meanwhile, Beam meets a pretty young lady when she drops a flower pot off of her balcony and onto the hood of his car. He gets her information so that he can have her pay for the repairs, and soon he falls for her.

As the film progresses we learn of a back story that took place in the 1920s where a young puppy became separated from the three young boys who would play with it. The puppy tried to get back to them but failed, and eventually it grew older and died. While all of this is going on, the old lady that Dan met predicts that someone in their group is going to die but she's very vague about the specifics of it all. Time passes and we learn that there's a connection between all of the characters in the film, but they're not cognizant of it until it all comes reeling in for the big finish.

More of a thriller with supernatural elements than an out and out horror film, Omen plays around with our preconceptions of how characters can be connected. To western audiences, the ending can be a bit of a head-scratcher but repeat viewings reveal that yes, the connection is there if you look for it and by eastern standards, maybe it's not so much of a stretch. You don't need to be an expert in Thai theology to enjoy the film but a little bit of background information on the country and it's religious practices will certainly add to your understanding of the ending - parts of it are obvious, but other parts not so much.

The aforementioned casting of a Thai boy band as the three lead men probably inspired a few groans when it was first mentioned and I'll admit to having some serious preconceived apprehensions about spending a couple of hours of my life with a film that sounded like it would suck hard from the get go but the three guys do a pretty decent job with the material that the Pang Brothers have written for them and it's easy to forget their teen idol/pop music roots once the plot starts moving along - which is thankfully very early on in the film.

Thammarak Kamuttmanoch's direction is solid and competent and the cinematography does a nice job of capturing not only the inner city locales where a good portion of the film takes place but also some of the more remote areas where parts of the story unfold.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Panik House presents Omen in a pretty spiffy 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that does a pretty nice job of capturing the mood and atmosphere of the film. While the image isn't quite perfect (there are a few scenes with some mild motion blurring and a few others that have a bit more print damage than you might expect to see on a film this recent) it is very good. Edge enhancement is only present in a couple of scenes and there are no issues with mpeg compression artifacts. Looking considerably better than Bangkok Haunted did, the picture has a pretty nice level of foreground and background detail in it and the shadowy interiors of the home where the old lady lives look sufficiently eerie and creepy because of that. Skin tones look lifelike and natural and color reproduction is decent.

The audio on this release is pretty much problem free. Panik House have gone all out and given viewers the option of watching the film in either a DTS 5.1 Surround Sound mix, a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix, or a Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround mix, all of which are in the film's native Thai language. Optional subtitles are available in either English or Spanish (there's an option to view the menus in Spanish as well, probably a nice touch if Spanish is your native tongue). Aside from one or two minor awkward phrasings in the English subtitles, both the Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS mixes sound pretty much perfect. Dialogue is crisp and clear and comes through without any hiss or distortion and the surrounds are used perfectly during the more intense moments of the film to build mood and atmosphere. The bass levels are strong but not overpowering and the levels seem to be set precisely where they should be as there aren't any issues with the sound effects or moody background music overshadowing the performers in the film.

Most of the extras are text based for this release, but they're pretty interesting as they serve to provide some decent background information on the film and its stars. Some basic production notes give a brief rundown of the events that transpire in the movie while The D2B Story gives us a history lesson on the band who remain relatively unknown in North America outside of Thai circles. Each of the three band members gets a profile, and an additional text piece entitled A Tribute To Big details the band member's life threatening accident and his road to recovery. This piece also reproduces some English language fan mail that was sent to him after his accident.

Rounding out the extra features are trailers for Omen and Bangkok Haunted, and three still galleries featuring promotional artwork, behind the scenes photographs, and production stills.

Again, Panik House provides menus in both English and Spanish. A nice touch if Spanish is your native tongue. The packaging for the first run of this DVD is pretty slick, with a nice slipcase cover overtop of the actual keepcase packaging and a sticker inside as well as an insert detailing the chapter stops with a reproduction of the poster art printed on the other side.

Hidden on the disc as an easy to find Easter egg is a making of documentary that follows a format similar to the one found on the Bangkok Haunted DVD. It looks like it might have been made for Thai television and the video quality isn't so hot but it's an interesting look behind the scenes of the film. Also hidden as an Easter egg is an additional still gallery featuring a wealth of promotional photographs of the band in action. Both of these Easter eggs are pretty easy to find by fiddling around with the directional buttons on your remote control.

The Final Word:

An interesting and unique Thai supernatural thriller gets a very nice domestic release from Panik House. Omen avoids a lot of the cliches that have cropped up in the Asian horror genre lately and tries something different with reasonably successful results. Don't let the boyband trappings fool you into not checking this one out.