Omega Doom

As I wormed myself forward into a subconscious delirium the night before last, I found myself striding in a dreamscape featuring Rutger Hauer. But this was not one of those nightmare visions full of obsidian and sulphur, fluctuating angles and amassed infants brandishing the face of Lance Henriksen, barrelled demons singing the praises of Ted Danson’s nausea-combusting Loch Ness. Nor was it the sort of sleazy grime-packed vitiation best found copulating in one of Burroughs’ westerns.

No, this was an anachronism stencilled with the ink of heretofore antiquity. For not only did the midnight express of illusion ride the rails of Rutger Hauer, not only did his skull-fibre provide a shroud for the night-sky itself, but, harking back to ancient China, I actually was Rutger Hauer.

There was a philosopher who used to ponder the imponderable back in the days of ancient China, back before people started to stroke their chins to the tune of anno Domini, and even before they started reruns of Knight Rider. He went by the name of Chuang Tzu. One night Chuang Tzu had a dream where he was a butterfly, and then upon awakening knew not whether he was a man who dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly who was now dreaming he was a man.

This philosophical paradox, this cerebral conundrum, is how I now view my venture into the night-clad reverie of evenings hitherto. I was Rutger Hauer; even now through the nebulous gaze of reminiscence I can accurately visual the details. The unusual perspectives, the strange linear dimensions, the skewed revival of bygone particularities, all unwashed by the eroding liquid of being awake. Could it be true that I am indeed Rutger Hauer asleep, dreaming he is a Gen X-wannabe with too much time on his hands?

This mental preoccupation is not only laced with implausibilities along the magnitude of space, but is also gilded with the membranes of time. My bodily transposition did not take me to the Hauer of today, where he scampers about starring in schlocky science-fiction and shoddy horror. It took me to the Hauer of 1997, where he scampered about starring in schlocky science-fiction and shoddy horror.

With the mist of dream-amnesia dispersing, allow me to recount the turbulence suffered in my dream.

I was on the set of the film Omega Doom, standing opposite an intern for Fangoria, an inexperienced twitch-athon gawking the sclera off the shells of my eyes. A few passive words later and I was off to film the apogean scene, the climax of a few weeks worth of fun, games and other idioms out on location in Eastern Europe. This apex of the narrative has me battle a female reject from The Matrix. Leather carapace and Ray Bans, she antedates the heavy black and combat verisimilitude of Neo and co by two years. And despite being a homicidal android, there’s a certain air of the amorous about her.

The scene is, I am resurrected following a temporary decommissioning care of the nasty animatronic siren. I then proceed to destroy her, save the heroine and take leave to the barren planes of dirt, grit and sand. It was then, in some cheeky stomp of synchronicity, that ‘cut’ was yelled and I woke up.

Many questions were left sans answers. Gaping chasms of plot-holes. Fissures the size of Kentucky in massive fits of yawning.

A die-cast need to know took me to the Sci-Fi Channel that next day, where as luck would have it Omega Doom was set to be broadcast.

Seems Hauer’s reappearance on the plane of life wasn’t quite the Lazarus moment I had preconceived. Hauer plays Omega Doom, a robot on an Earth shaken with the frost of nuclear winter. Turns out these robots only data process evil. They took over the planet and caused the last crumbs of humanity to skulk into hiding. But Omega is different - due to a rogue bullet in the cranium, his evil circuits have become defective, resulting in only the nicest of nice thoughts to reverberate in his wiring.

Walking the arid land like Cain or Patrick Swayze, he eventually comes upon a small derelict town where two factions of robots are having a mini-civil war over a cache of weapons that may or may not be lying around in the vicinity. What with all those phantasms of bunnies, laughing babies, and other clichés of cuteness rebounding off his CPUs, he can’t help but eliminate the ne’er-do-wells and foist a flaming fist of peace on the community.

He does this. And all while skipping around the place all like a Russian stereotype wearing something akin to an Ushanka - a Russian fur hat. Reasons for this never amble this direction throughout the film, so I’ll assume that rowdy frat boys on vacation nearby amalgamated Hauer’s shampoo with green hair-dye, causing a most psychedelic outbreak of verdant dementia. Thus we have him attiring his head so as to not distract too much from the cinematography and screenplay.

Shoulda let him go hatless.

I never thought I’d say this about a Rutger Hauer film, but since we now seem to possess some sort of psychic link, I feel it’d be a disservice to not make my chagrin known. The debasing of my senses arises from a terrible story, ramshackle acting, tedious pacing, lousy effects, imbecilic dialogue and banal photography. At least half of that cavalcade of negation can be redeemed with the presence of Hauer, but alas too much goes on while he’s out soaping himself in the hotel Jacuzzi.

So does that mean that nothing has been learned to assist in my philosophical predicament? Why not commute my mind to the rancid joy of The Hitcher, or the soiled excitement of Night Hawks? Well no, Omega Doom is integral. Explicit is the reasoning for the seemingly arbitrary dream-travel in which I participated.

Rutger Hauer is Omega, he is the end, the finale, the conclusion and resolution and retribution all in one. The corollary of this is that I am Alpha, the beginning, the initial. But my part is superfluous except for providing something for Rutger Hauer to consummate; all I have done is flicker a seed or two, whilst he forms and moulds it all into a zenith of a close.

Despite this, at least for the time being, one inquiry fails to be gratified. Am I he dreaming me, or am I me dreaming he?