The Calling

In this film there is a very young pretty gal who gets married to a handsome guy who has the large home and everything to go with a prosperous person. After the large celebration and all the people have left for the evening, usually romance starts in the bedroom. However, in this picture it encounters a walk through the woods on a moon-lite night and then a stroll to a high cliff area overlooking the ocean below. The couple embrace and make love on the hard rock surface, instead of a nice warm cozy bed; it is from this point on in the picture that things start to change for the worst. The young bride is pregnant immediately after the hard rock love making and a sweet lovely child is conceived for the entire world to enjoy. If you like this type of film and especially,"Rosemary's Baby", you will enjoy this film.

***SPOILERS*** Another "Omen" clone with the Antichrist coming back to earth to usher in the year 2000. At the beginning of the movie "The Calling" we see Kristie St. Clair, Laura Harris, being chased into the sea by a group of black-clad Satanist and then shot. In the hospital Kristie under intensive care is attended by her priest Father Mullin, Peter Waddington, whom she tell her story, as we go into flashback, about the string of events that ended up almost costing her life.

Being married to top Isle of Man TV news commentator Marc St. Clair, Richard Lintern,Kristie's life could never be more happier until she gave birth to her son Dylan, Alex Roe. On the very day that Dylan was born Marc's station's manager Jack Plummer, John Standing, and his wife's Elizabeth (Alice Krige)seven year old son Sammy, Liam Hess, disappeared. Found some time later Sammy had his heart cut out in some kind of gruesome Satanic ritual but the story was kept from the public by news-reporter Marc; it was reported that Sammy was strangled.

It becomes obvious that young Dylan is some how connected with Sammy's murder in that the dead boy's parents Jack & Elizabeth become his surrogate parents. It's as if they in some way traded in Sammy for him! Growing up Dylan get's influenced by both the Plummers and his father Marc in the black arts which includes the unchristian rites of Satanism like reading backwards as they do with passages of the Bible in some of their secret rituals.

Kristie's friend Lynette, Camilla Puner, about the only person in the movie, besides Kristie, who isn't a Satanist later interrupts an ungodly act preformed on young Dylan by his father Marc and Elizabeth which later cost Lynette her life. Dylan in a mocking of the crucifixion was himself crucified by Marc & Elizabeth , but lived to tell about it, upside down!

"The Calling" get's very confusing with it's attempt to show how powerful the grip of Satan is on the people of the Isle of White by over doing a number of wild crazy and ungodly scenes. There's a drunken sex orgy, where this dirty old man get's electrocuted in a Jacuzzi, that Kristie secretly attends. Earlier a woman, for what seemed like no reason at all, jumps from a tower and lands on top of Kristie's car almost killing her and Dylan who was with her at the time. There's also the weirdo cab driver Carmac, Francis McGee, who's some kind of religious nut popping up in scene after scene and giving Kristie, and the audience, the straight dope to what's really happening on the screen.

You sense right away that this Carmac knows a lot more then what he's saying and as the movie moves to it's predictable conclusion you start to realize that he does a lot more then drive a taxi for a living in fact he drives almost the entire cast of the movie into a wild and hysterical frenzy in the films end-of-the-world-like final scene.

Even though nowhere near as effective as "The Omen" the film "The Calling" has the same eerie and disturbing look to it, in fact it's one of the most shocking and unnerving TV movies that I've ever seen. The ending of the movie like in "The Omen" leaves you with a bad feeling in your heart and mind in that there's no way in stopping Satan, or the Devil, from doing his evil deeds on earth. Even the priest Father Mullin get's so disturbed by what he sees that he just rips off his collar and throws it away.

The movie ends almost crying for a sequel, like in The Omen, but now some six years later that sequel has yet came to pass; maybe it's because the movie was such a flop in the box office that it wasn't worth, for it's financiers, in making one.

THE CALLING is an updated ROSEMARY'S BABY / THE OMEN hybrid that's actually pretty good.

Laura Harris is believable as Kristie St. Clair, the increasingly suspicious mum of young Dylan (Alex Roe). She faces what she sees as a satanic conspiracy of historic, global proportions. Not surprisingly, no one believes her, except for those who are already involved in the whole thing.

The magnificent Alice Krige co-stars as the wicked Elizabeth Plummer. Unfortunately, Ms. Krige is underused here. The rest of the cast is serviceable, with Francis Magee's enigmatic cabby, Carmac being the standout. The story is engaging and suspenseful, with a building sense of doom. There are some cool twists, and the finale is a grabber!

Yes, a boom mic is clearly visible during the church scene, but it doesn't ruin the entire movie. Worth a watch...

A young American woman gets married with a famous British newscaster, and apparently lives a perfect life in the Isle of Man until she discovers that his husband is part of a satanic cult trying to start the Antichritst's reign over Earth.

Sounds familiar? This movie gives more than a nod to horror classics "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Omen"; as its plot is like a mixture of both story lines with not even a quarter of the magnificence of those movies.

Richard Caesar's debut is a low-budget movie that puts Laura Harris in Mia Farrow's role as Kristie, the woman trapped in a blasphemous conspiracy by her husband Marc St. Claire (Richard Lintern). Betrayed by everyone, it is up to her to save the soul of her son Dylan (Alex Roe) who plays the role of hateful evil kid perfectly.

The movie's main problem is the lack of originality and poor development of the script, nothing really outstanding happens and it is quite formulaic; the characters' actions are unrealistic, and the dialogs are uninspired. However, the ending is particularly good, and it is a shame that one has to endure more than 70 boring and tedious minutes to arrive to the only good part of the movie.

The acting is nothing special and while Laura Harris makes a good lead, her character has some of the worst lines in the movie. It is a shame to see her waste her talent like that. On the other hand, Francis Magee has the best part in the movie as the mysterious taxi driver Carmac, and he easily steals every scene he is in.

The movie has a nice photography considering the low-budget, and the Isle of Man serves as a beautiful and different location. Caesar's direction is quite typical for modern day suspense thrillers but it works and the movie flows at good pace.

It is definitely not a bad movie, as even with its flaws it still manages to entertain and has a few good things to offer (specially the ending); however, there are similar movies that are far superior than "The Calling" as it stays in a mediocre level. 5/10

"There can be only one, there can be only one"...which seem to be the running theme in the supposed, alleged, minds of the users here I guess. Well this is the real life movie industry, not Highlander...lol

This Omen/Rosemary's baby clone enters the genre (Along with movies like Bless he Child) like any other, constantly compared to those 2 movies and seemingly attacked for NOT being them. Thank goodness there is an intelligent segment of cinema buffs who can accept and enjoy the existence of more than one Shark movie besides Jaws and more than one Slasher besides Halloween, ect,ect. This devil's child movie is a fine addition to it's particular genre, with a similar story to Rosemary's Baby it manages to present it's own variation on the story well. Good cinematography, decent acting, and thankfully a child actor with acting chops to play the Little Devil with conviction and menace. It's not The Omen, nothing could be, but it is one bloody good time and fun little variation of the themes. It manages to fit well into my genre collections (Killer Kids, Supernatural and Demonic) and I'm glad to have bought it. If you can handle more than 2 or 3 entries into a particular genre, you probably will too..