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Alex Heard

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Posted Tuesday, Dec. 21, 1999, at 9:00 PM ET

Last night I skipped dinner with the jovial in-laws and aimed my rental car toward Manassas, Va., the only place I could find within a 50-mile radius of Washington, D.C., that's still showing The Omega Code, a feature film about the End Times starring Michael York.

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You may recall reading about The Omega Code a couple of months ago--like The Blair Witch Project, it came out of low-budget nowheresville and surprised the experts by earning tens of millions of dollars in a swift burn through Middle America. Any similarities with Blair Witch stop there, though. Code was produced by the Trinity Broadcast Network, a Christian outfit in Southern California whose top guy, Paul Crouch, is one of the more prominent popularizers of the doomsday prophecies found in the Book of Revelation.

I've been wanting to see this movie for months--I love novels, films, and artwork that grow out of apocalyptic beliefs, and I don't mean this ironically--but it's been impossible. I live in the Bay Area, and Code never came there. Soon after its release, a spokesman for Trinity said the distribution strategy specifically excluded cities that weren't evangelically churchy enough, which meant "no chance" for Babylon on the Pacific.

Code was screening at Manassas Mall. I arrived with time to spare, so I ducked into a Christian bookstore that contained a huge shelf-load of End Times tomes, along with an interactive kiosk offering scenes from other (less successful) apocalyptic feature films of recent vintage.

I'd never seen this kiosk deal before, and I monkeyed around with it so long that I almost missed the start of Code. Punch a button and you get a trailer for Vanished, a film from John Hagee Ministries about the crucial End Times event known as the Rapture--the moment during the Tribulation period when good Christians will be whooshed up into Heaven, just in time to save them from the rampages and torments of the Antichrist. ("It will happen," says the voiceover.) Punch another and--yegads!--it's Gary Busey, jawing vaguely through the potboiler script of Tribulation. Busey's not the only former marquee player who's found himself toiling in an End Times film: He was joined in cinematic purgatory by Howie Mandel, Margot Kidder, Jeff Fahey, "supermodel Carol Alt," and Nick Mancuso, who plays the Antichrist in both Revelation and Tribulation.

In Code, the Antichrist is good ol' Michael York, who looks like he just had a botox facial but otherwise does a fine job with a tough part. (My favorite Antichrist clunker comes when he's thanking a woman, a top international broadcaster, after her betrayal of a brave-hearted American who tries to stop York. "Ahhhh, Cassandra," he says. "My Jezebel. My ... Salome?") But alas, as screenplay fodder, the apocalypse has built-in problems, the biggest one being the vast sweep of the subject matter. To summarize very, very briefly what has to happen:

The Antichrist, a falsely charismatic agent of Satan, rises to become head of a Global Government. (In Code, York gets the exalted title Chancellor of the United World.)
He rebuilds the Temple in Jerusalem, where he's crowned top dude--a travesty known as "the abomination of desolation."
He murders a couple of guys, the "two witnesses," who have been standing in front of the Temple Mount prophesying the triumph of Good over Evil.
Though he has posed as a friend of Israel, he sets out to destroy it. He also requires anyone left behind after the Rapture to accept his mark (666) or face death.
He kills people for a few more years while the seas turn to blood, locusts swarm, earthquakes increase, the Four Horsemen appear, the Whore of Babylon struts around, and so forth. In time, Christ returns at the head of an army--weirdly, with a sword jutting out of his mouth--and kicks ass at the Battle of Armageddon. The Antichrist dies; Satan is thrown into a pit and a thousand years of peace, a k a the millennium, begins.

Whew! Putting that on the screen would require a huge f/x budget, so, none too surprisingly, when it comes time to cut costs, these movies usually look to the back half. In this respect, Code bummed me out. Instead of depicting Armageddon--which I really want to see, particularly the sword/mouth effect--it employed a deus ex cheapskate gimmick right after the abomination. There was no avenging army--instead, the whole planet was swallowed up in a white-hot cloud of nuclear-godhead righteousness.

Nice try, but not good enough: I give it two mouth-swords down.

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Posted Tuesday, Dec. 21, 1999, at 9:00 PM ET

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Alex Heard is the editorial director of Outside magazine.

COMMENTS

Highlights from the Fray (note: these posts should be read after the final Diary entry):

OK, we've made it. Phewww! Man, I don't know about you, but I thought we'd NEVER get here. Remember the "Cold War" years? Geez ... I didn't think we'd make it much past the Cuban Missile Crisis, let alone the 70s, 80s and 90s! But then came Glasnost, Parastroika, the wall tumbling down...and the world breathed a collective sigh of relief...especially those creepy terrorists who could now get weapons-grade plutonium at rock-bottom prices!

Heck, I guess the computer geniuses didn't think we'd make it either; I mean, look at the mess they created? I suppose they thought, "Ehh...leave the 6-digit date field...let someone ELSE worry about it. What matters is we keep up with the PC market, make tons of profits now, before we get nuked and none of it matters anyway." And of course, the children of these goons are making THEIR fortunes now, on Y2K pandemonium. Excuse me while I hurl!

Well, alas, we've made it (almost...do the math, those of you who believe the millenium actually ends Friday at midnight). Some of you might be surprised that most of the world doesn't share the same date system. Yes, Virginia! There ARE other societies besides our own, with different beliefs entirely! (By the way, if some of them are right, we'll all be reincarnated as insect larvae.) Anyway, relax, my friends. Wear those funny hats, drink your champagne, and sing that strange song that no one seems to remember the words to, when the ball drops. Kiss your significant other ... or anyone you who will let you. Be happy to be alive. We've made it to the end of the football season. Now, let's look forward to the next, and make it one to be proud of.

--J. Bell

(To reply, click here.)

I don't think that the world will end, space ships will land, volcanos erupt, asteroids fall, etc., but all the hype has led my wife and I to make an emergency kit with a change of clothes, 48 hours' worth of food and water, and flashlights, etc to put in my storage shed for an emergency that could happen now or 5-10 years from now. There has been speculation for years that the New Madrid Fault (which is 25 miles from my home) is going to send us the "big one."

--Philip Faughn

(To reply, click here.)

WARNING!!! THIS WHOLE Y2K THING IS A BIG GOVERNMENT SCAM!! DO NOT FALL FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!

--YBuzz

(To reply, click here.)

Something from another MSN posting of a few days ago:

Public Service Award for Bringing a Sense of Perspective to This Whole Ludicrous Millennium Flapdoodle: Life revealed that what we call the year 2000 is the year 2543 for Buddhists, 1420 for Muslims, 1921 for Hindus, 4697 for the Chinese, 1993 for Ethiopians, 5119 for Mayans and 5760 for Jews.

--Johanan Rakkav

(To reply, click here.)

Re: Richard W. Noone. I heard a long time ago that on 5/5/2000, all nine planets will be in a perfect line, pull each other off course, and that will be the end of life on earth. I don't believe it, but it is something to look forward to.

--Tom Ford

(To reply, click here.)

Noone is an ass!!! He has obviously forgot to do the math in regards to the Grand Conjunction of May 5, 2000. Any interested person feeling insecure about the alignment of the planets and a shifting of the poles ought not to be. Using simple Newtonian formulas(not complex calculus), one will discover that the change (delta) in gravitational force dynamic is hardly enough to budge the world. There is a greater interaction between the Earth's moon and sun than any combination of planets. One cannot forget that gravitation force between planets acts on the center of the orb and not on a South or North Pole. Noone is a nut. Fall into a Black Hole idiot!!!!

--Mark

(To reply, click here.)

All I really wanna do is be close to my family. I don't believe that anything serious will happen, well maybe the electricity would cut for a while say two hours but not more than that. Most people I know will be sitting at home too. CNN will have a full coverage for the new millennium in every country so I'll be watching it. Well the TV is one of the most important inventions in this millennium so why not spend the change of it with it?!

--Sarah

(To reply, click here.)

okay, if anything will happen it will be one of these things (i think):

the world will pretty much blow up, volcanoes everywhere, Christian people may or may not vanish, or die,(i'm not a satinist--i mean go to heaven. i am a christian)which will turn the world into either a pre-hell, or maybe god will move hell to earth, or maybe we will be forced to live with the fiery inferno for 1000 years(or 777 or 7 or something). you get the idea

or

the Lord will come back to earth, raise all the christians, and send everyone else to hell.

or (hehe)

we will get chips in our arms, that let us buy food, and if your christian you do not get a chip (well, you may, but its an evil chip, called the 666 chip). i don't know about that one, but in the bible it says that's what happened a long time ago.

or (yes, another)

we'll kill ourselves, with nukes and all--i would not be at all surprised if the lights go OUT jan 1st, 2000 (not 2001 in this case cuz this would be us humans, and no one seems to know about 2001 bein the real new millenium)

or

nothing will happen, it'll be just like before!

--NuKT

(To reply, click here.)

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