The Last Movie You Watched

[Rev. Rye]

SThis week in The Deep Hurting Project is The Omega Code. Honestly, as far as movies about the Antichrist that are clearly following the Left Behind narrative, it's actually... fine. The Apocalypse tetralogy is objectively worse made, and the popularity of the Left Behind series may make them more harmful, but overall, it looks like a spy movie or a thriller that was made for basic cable in the late Nineties. And despite its using The Bible Code as a major plot point, it's actually NOT preachy about its message. That said, it's actually remarkably nondescript. The Head of the EU becoming world dictator plot was done better, and even a scene where Casper Van Dien's being chased by a fucking demonic truck was done better in C Me Dance, although, I have to admit, that was funny. I actually remembered watching it before, back in the days when the library still had VHS tapes, but the one scene I rememebered was a scene where Casper Van Dien's character is being introduced on a talk show and there's so much crazy shit in it that I just have to lay it out:

• He's apparently a self-help guru who claims to use the Bible Code to help people's lives, although, even from what I've read, that's not even close to what The Bible Code is supposed to be about. It's claims that the Bible had messages that pointed to future events hidden in the text that can be gleamed when the text is arranged in a totally arbitrary way specifically to claim the Bible foretold it, even though the same process could also be done with Moby-Dick
  
  
  
• Look, you can either be Tony Robbins or Bart D. Ehrman. You can't be both.
  
• How the fuck is the Bible is a holographic computer program? 
  
• No, Isaac Newton did not work on the Bible Code for the last ten years of his life. Indeed, his religious work is more focused on a literal interpretation of scripture.
  
• Of course he lost his faith in God because his mother died. Of course.
  
• Using the Bible Code to help turn people into God? What the fuck is that even supposed to mean?
  

Sadly, the rest of the movie isn't anywhere near this fascinatingly fucked up. That said, there is one big redeeming quality: Michael York's performance as the Antichrist. In his subtler moments, he sounds like he's channeling James Mason, and in his broader moments, he's so hammy you don't give a shit that the rest of the film is kinda dull. And, in other series, when the diplomat-turned-Antichrist comes out as being some kind of God, people just seem to accept it, more or less because the author's interpretation of the Book of Revelation demands it. Here, though, when he claims to be God, the reaction is a lot more tepid. Not quite the level of rejection that many of them would expect, especially in Jerusalem, but still far more than a lot of other series. Thank Jah for small mercies.

Surprisingly, despite this making the So Bad It's Horrible list, this film, the worst take on this basic plot I've ever seen, did not make it (probably since, because it's only 54 minutes and seems to be mostly made of stock footage of Apocalypse combined with new footage that makes it even stupider, it may not count as a movie.):