The Omega Man (review by Doug Smith)
“The Omega Man” is a rather hateful little film that takes place after the apocalypse. In a nutshell, there’s only one human left, who has to defend himself against baking powder-faced, Ray Ban wearing vampires who lisp. Don’t let the word “vampires” fool you, though. Even though most summaries of this movie call them that, the only similarity they have to the Dracula type vampires is that they don’t like light.
This movie stars everyone’s favorite magnificent bastard, Charlton Heston, who has the the ability of taking the Lord’s name in vain better than anyone I know. Anthony Zerbe plays news anchor turned evil vampire, Matthias, who has a wonderful way of saying, “Take him to the little room … for questioning.” My personal favorite performance comes from Rosalind Cash. Her portrayal of Lisa is something straight out of “Blackula!” And, yes, I’m being sarcastic about enjoying her performance. Rounding out the cast is Paul Koslo, who plays Dutch, a perfect example of a Jeff Gordon fan. Also, keep an eye open for about a two second shot of an oriental kid named Tommy. That’s Brian Tochi, who did the voice of Leonardo in the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” films, played Takashi in three “Revenge of the Nerds” movies, and played Nogata in “Police Academy” three and four.
The movie starts off, quite literally, with a bang, when Charlton Heston is driving along on the empty streets of L.A., comes to a sudden stop, and, in super hyper action speed, bounces up and blows something away. And, thus, the NRA is born. Chuck continues driving along, which was obviously put in the movie to make it a bit longer. Eventually, he gets a flat. Lucky for him, it just so happens there’s a car dealership right across the street. What follows wasn’t really written. The director just sent the camera crew along with Chuckie when he went to buy a new car.
Now the excitement starts. Good ol’ Moses … er … wait … Chuck realizes night time is near. Eeeeeeeeeeeek! Doing his best imitation of Speed Racer, Neville (Heston’s character) races home as fast as possible. Unfortunately, it’s not fast enough and he gets ambushed by some vampires. The end. No, wait. Chuck manages to fend off the vampires and gets himself inside, where he proceeds to have a deep conversation with his statue of Caeser. Warning: You may want to imitate the vampires and put on some sunglasses. Heston takes his shirt off.
Neville goes out the next day to hunt for the critters, but doesn’t have any success, so he decides to go to the Gap and get some groovy digs. He becomes infatuated with a store mannequin, and, just when you think you’re going to need a vomit bag, another non-mutant person shows up. Aha! Wait … the whole plot summary of the movie was that he’s the only person alive. Umm … okay. At any rate, I’ve become bored with writing this summary, so I’ll just say the movie goes on from there. Yes, I’m dedicated. No, really.
Okay, I’ll admit Charlton Heston isn’t my favorite person in the world. I do, however, find him entertaining; in the same way that I find 1950s short features entertaining. This wasn’t quite so much the case with this particular movie, but it was still mildly enjoyable. The action seqeunces aren’t bad, the plot is fascinating, and the music, which is provided by Ron “Doctor Who” Grainer, is all right. I give this one three and a half yaks. It might’ve gotten four, were it not for the performances of Rosalind Cash and Paul Koslo. They sure stunk up the screen in this one. Oy!