I was just thinking about the first Omen movie, from 1976. It is excellent in soooo many different ways, of course: music, cast, abrupt beheadings (always an important consideration), and, perhaps mportantly... settings.

I think one big reason The Omen gets under all our skin is because it is largely set in places that had a lot of significance in Western culture. Rome, London, and... well, Israel, if not necessarily Jerusalem... I can't remember if there's a brief shot of Jerusalem somewhere in there, like right when Gregory Peck flies in, maybe... whatever. My point is that so many of our traditions and cultural history is rooted in those places. My hair almost starts standing on end when I just hear the names of those places, even without thinking of them in the context of a horror movie. You just think of London, Rome, and Israel, and you can just feel the weight of centuries and millennia of important human history. The movie draws upon that feeling, I think. You just feel like "oh wow, so many hugely important things that affected the destinies of millions of people, and BILLIONS of their descendants, happened in these locations. Now, in this movie... um... something ELSE is happening that may affect the fate of the world..." I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

So, here's where ancient Greece comes in. Why are there so few, if any, horror movies that exploit similar feelinds that we should have about ancient Greece? Athens, especially? I mean, Athens was a pretty damned important place in the development of democracy and philosophy, right? But I can't even think of any horror movies that plug into that, and try to give us a horror movie type of reaction to things that went down there. I mean, there are some SyFy channel type movies about minotaurs, chimeras, harpies, and various Greek mythological creatures. And Greek gods and heroes have their share of movies. But there's hardly anything that tries to create a horror movie type of shivery frisson feeling about trhe birth of democracy or philosophy. It feels funny even thinking about this, like it's a silly thing to think about. But why is that?

Maybe it's because democracy and philosophy at least try, or sometimes maybe just pretend to try, to be about being RATIONAL, whereas horror movies are all about the IRRATIONAL side of humanity. But, just in the sense of the weight of many, many centuries of human history, it seems like Athens could potentially elicit the same kind of reaction that we get from hearing about Rome, London, and Israel in The Omen.

I guess this could work in a time travel type of movie. Like, time travellers go back to ancient Athens and affect the developmen of democratic ideas... that would hugely affect all of western history, for as far back as written records go. That idea kind of gives me that shivery feeling, just from imagining the sheer scale of the significance of things that happened in that location. But it's different from the Omen feeling I get. I guess it's just because the things that happened in Athens don't give us a feeling of religious awe or majesty, like a lot of things that went down in the cathedrals and public places of Rome and London.

I don't know if I'm saying this very well, but I feel like I'm on to something here. Anyone have any thoughts about any of this???