Damien – Omen II

Release Date: June 9, 1978

Watch Date: October 15, 2024

“Since the sudden and highly-suspicious death of his parents, 12 year-old Damien has been in the charge of his billionaire uncle Richard Thorne. Widely feared to be the Antichrist, Damien plots to seize control of his uncle’s multi-national food conglomerate-and the world. Meanwhile, anyone attempting to unravel the secrets of Damien’s sinister past or fiendish future meets with a cruel demise.”

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   Maybe I’m not as scared of horror films as I once thought I was. Or, possibly, this is not really much of a horror film. Or, more likely, what I don’t like is gore, and modern horror films have gotten much, much gorier now that they can rely on CGI and more modern practical effect techniques.

   Just a thought.

   It’s not really until the end of this film that you think, oh okay, this kid is evil, because for the majority of the film, he’s not really doing much. A crow is killing a lot of people, even just for the sin of disliking him – like the poor old lady at the beginning of the film – but mostly Damien just wants to be a big shot at his military prep school.

   See, I thought he was being raised by the President, which was a much more intimidating way to end the film.

   I think what bugged me the most was that originally, there was a lot of build up. Yes, deaths and accidents occurred, but they kind of flowed with the narrative, a character wasn’t introduced and then two minutes later died. There was a much deeper feeling of mystery, of trying to figure out just what was going on between the six year old and the creepy nanny.

   This is just; character is introduced. Doesn’t like Damien, or questions Damien. Dead. We have two deaths of characters in the first five minutes of the film. And the journalist, who actually has connections to two characters from the original film, and has notes for an article about Damien, she dies and is basically never mentioned again. No one goes to her apartment and tries to figure out what’s up with her. And Charles could have. We could have had another investigative scene like with the photographer and Damien’s adopted dad. But no, crow attack instead.

   Damien also takes his discovery that he is the Antichrist pretty well. Which might be because he’s evil, so why fight it? It might also be because he’s apparently surrounded with people who know exactly who he is and already want to help forward the devils plans? They don’t do more then kind of hint that he’s about to become something great, well and one guy basically puts the Bible in his hands and is like “read this, this is about you, figure it out.” I don’t know what inspires the kid to immediately check his scalp for the number of the beast. It just seems, to me, to not be a realistic interpretation of what these adults are telling you – which for me would require immediately going to my parents (their boss) or the head of the academy (their boss) and telling them that the adults they’ve put in charge of me might be a little bit of their rockers.

   All in all, this movie wasn’t scary, and was worse than the original. Maybe with the conclusion of the franchise we’ll get a little bit of closure, and a little bit more horror, but somehow I doubt it. I always thought the Omen series was regarded quite highly in horror circles, but maybe it’s more the concept, and less of the execution?

   You tell me.