DAMIEN: OMEN II (1978) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge
Director: Don Taylor Writers: Stanley Mann and Michael Hodges (story by Harvey Bernhard) Starring: Jonathan Scott-Taylor, William Holden, Lee Grant, Lucas Donat, Robert Foxworth, Nicholas Pryor, Lew Ayres, Sylvia Sidney, Lance Henriksen, Elizabeth Shepherd, Allan Arbus, Mesach Taylor, Leo McKern
There are many scenes in "Damien: Omen II" that would easily make this film pass as a totally worthy successor to the first film, which was an entertaining bit of extreme Christian paranoia. In fact, I'd say that there are certain scenes in this film which are better than anything that was in "The Omen." But like all films, a level of consistency is needed to make a film work as a whole. A film needs to have us believe in what it introduces to us, and then to follow them up and not give us any confusing contradictions. And thus, the second in the "Omen" films is frankly a mess of a film.
For those of you who missed the first one, the "Omen" films are about the rise and fall of Damien, the antichrist (played this time by Jonathan Scott-Taylor). This one takes place seven years after the first one where he is now 12 and has lived with his uncle, Richard Thorn (William Holden, a couple years before his death), and his most recent wife, Ann (Lee Grant), since the death of his parents when he was five (see: "The Omen"). Richard, a billionaire, has taken good care of him, and has even allowed his own son, Mark (Lucas Donat), to become like a brother to Damien.
While the first one had to do with his birth and the discovery by others that he was the antichrist, this one has a tougher job: it has to continue the discovery by others of his identity AND has to introduce Damien discovering who he is, and seeing if he can live up to what he was born to be. As the film proceeds, we meet several people who either totally discover who Damien really is or only begin to discover but don't fully know. Either way, they are offed by coincidence or a nasty black crow, both done by Satan himself.
This was something that was done in the first film as well - someone discovers that Damien exists in the form of Gregory Peck's five-year-old son, and they're killed off in a bizarre way - but here is done to such extremes that they become high camp (not that the ones in the others weren't campy - need I remind anyone of how the one priest is killed? I'm still laughing over that one). It seems that every ten or fifteen minutes, someone comes along that is crazed with the knowledge that Damien Thorn is the antichrist, and a scene later stumble onto a weird death. The thing was in the first one, they were: a) part of small and eerie prophecies, and b) there were only five of them total. I think that there are about 10 of them here, all done with a gradual descent of originality. There are so many at so many varying levels of camp that the film eventually turns Satan, who does all the killing, into the world's perfect slasher.
All the while, there's William Holden's Richard, standing there amidst a high level of corpses, with numerous people telling him about his son, and not being able to recognize that any of this is in the slightest way a problem with Damien. This is a film where everything could probably be resolved quickly if Richard wasn't so blind to everything. Luckily Holden is such a good actor that he actually makes everything seem realistic. He brings his character enough depth that some faults in the script are fixed, while others just stand there unaided.
The film balances Satan's doings of not letting anyone find out too much with Damien's discovery of who he is, but this is done with varying amounts of contradictions. In one scene, he's yelling at his father "WHY ME?!" and in the other, he's joyously watching someone who knows to much get killed. It even tries to introduce those who have discovered who he is, and intend on trying to help him become the antichrist, like his one sergeant at military school (Lance Henriksen, before his voice was plagued with the effects of tobacco), who tells him to read the Book of Revelations to find out who he is.
But as I said, the film is filled with some very great scenes, including some very inventive murder scenes (and some not-so-inventive), especially some of the first ones (though I kinda liked a later one where Messach Taylor of "Designing Women" was killed in an elevator scene...not that I ever watched "Designing Women"). The film starts out well, and begins to show some great promise, especially how it may actually follow up on the idea that Damien may just be a human with a great burden. Eventually, it becomes just a very dramatic slasher pic, complete with proposterous twists, and a couple instances of good direction.
I've made this out to be a pretty awful little film, and yes, it is a mess, but it's actually very engrossing. There's not a minute of the film that isn't watchable, and Jonathan Scott-Taylor shows himself to be a very effective Damien (though his constantly switching accent is a bit perterbing at times). The thing is if you haven't seen the first one, you may be blown away by some of the prophecies it unearths. But if you have seen the first one, you've already been through all that before, so why would you need a cheap copy of it?
MY RATING (out of 4): **1/2
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