Damien: Omen II

Oh boy, oh boy—if this sequel is any indicator, The Omen series is the kind that only “improves” with each movie. Damien: Omen II pumps up the bad acting, the ludicrous killings, and the plot idiocy. Plus, this one features an evil black raven! Best of all, it’s set in my hometown of Chicago! Go, Chicago! Really, it’s only appropriate, given what a pit of political corruption Chicago has been lately.

Plot Summary

Damien Thorn is now an obnoxious evil teenager who lives with his uncle’s family in the rich suburbs of Chicago. As he approaches the big 1-3, his demonic powers come into their own. Will the crazy Christians…um, I mean, the good people be able to convince Damien’s uncle (Robert Thorn’s brother) to kill Damien before he inherits the family business and TAKES OVER THE WORLD OMG?!?

Nutrition Facts

Vitamin B-Acting: 75%

Jonathan Scott-Taylor, who plays Damien, has about as much acting talent as Harvey Stephens—so in other words, none at all. I applaud the moviemakers for at least achieving internal consistency on the point of Damien’s acting. The highlight of Scott-Taylor’s “acting” occurs right before he kills his cousin Mark. Damien bellows a short monologue starting with: “Born in the image of the greatest power in the world! The Desolate One.” There's just something about listening to a baby-faced 13-year-old say those lines with no emotion...

Desolate One, Jr.

William Holden, as Damien’s uncle Richard, is the Featured Embarrassed Actor for this movie. Omen II can hardly hope to compete with the likes of Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, and The Bridge on the River Kwai.

There are a few fun cameos here. If you watch this movie, you’re likely to recognize Aunt Marion as the lawyer Juno from Beetlejuice (Sylvia Sidney), and Pasarian as Dr. Sidney Freedman from "MASH" (Allan Arbus).

Vitamin B-SFX: 95%

Omen II’s special effects are worse than the original film’s. One thing you’ll notice is the prominence of the color red. Joan Hart, a reporter who knows what Damien really is, sports a coat with a humongous feather collar made of a retina-melting shade of bright red. How much more marked for death can a person be, with a coat like that? Forget knowing that Damien is the Antichrist. That coat was a fashion crime punishable only by death!

"How DARE you? This coat does NOT make me look like a streetwalker!"

And yes, Joan does die. She’s driving on a rural roadway after spying on Damien at military school, and the evil crow swoops down and pecks out her eyes. Then a large truck conveniently arrives to run over Joan.

Red next appears when a doctor who notices abnormalities in Damien’s blood has to die. First, we see a line of beakers with bubbly red liquid glowing as the camera zooms in on Dr. Kane. BTW, I’m sure that the American Medical Association mandates all doctors to keep ominously bubbling beakers in their offices.

Anyway, Dr. Kane realizes that Damien has jackal blood, and runs off with the samples to consult a colleague. He enters a stairway painted BRIGHT RED with an elevator shaft in the center. (I’m pretty sure that this is the Red Stairwell at the Museum of Science and Industry, but I’m not certain.) Needless to say, this proves to be the Elevator of Doom for good Dr. Kane, and he proceeds to die in a hilariously unconvincing manner. (More details to come later in this post!)

The other notably goofy SFX don’t feature red, but they have no trouble standing out on their own merits. When Dr. Kane dies, for instance, the things sticking out of his sliced body look suspiciously like bedsprings. The blood on Joan Hart’s face looks a lot like water with red food dye added to it.

Then there’s “Vigael’s Wall.” This is supposed to be an ancient wall with portraits of the Antichrist from the four stages of his life. The first, of course, looks just like Harvey Stephens from the first Omen. I’ll let the picture speak for itself:

Sparkly snakes!

Vitamin Fun: 50%

More enjoyable than the first movie--the ramped-up silliness is guaranteed to make you laugh plenty.

Sugar: 10%

I think the movie intends us to think that Damien struggles a little with learning he’s the Antichrist, and then when he pulls a Darth Vader on Mark. However, these scenes are so poorly written and acted that they ultimately have no emotional effect on the viewer.

Plot Fiber: 0%

Looking back on my review for The Omen, I probably should have given it a Plot Fiber rating of 5%. The original film certainly seems more logical than Omen II.

1) Again with the overly convoluted deaths. Why peck out Joan Hart’s eyes in the first place? Why not just have a truck ram into her car?

The Elevator of Doom is easily the silliest death in the entire movie, though. Here are the details: Dr. Kane gets in the elevator. Instead of going down, it goes all the way to the top, then free falls. Then it stops on the third floor, and Dr. Kane is still okay. But the safety cables break loose, and when they fall they slice through the elevator and slice Dr. Kane in half! (You can see the bedsprings sticking out of his “body” then.) Why not just let the elevator smash into the ground? That would have done the job plenty well. Apparently Satan has never watched "Mythbusters."

The death of Charles Warren, the Field Museum curator, is tough to believe as well—why would he not have seen that runaway train coming from ten miles away? Wouldn’t it have been much easier to just leave him to the NYC muggers?

Speaking of the Field Museum, I was really disappointed that the moviemakers didn’t have the T-Rex skeleton collapse and kill a character. That would have been awesome! Maybe they thought that would be “too much”?

2) Once again, the minions drop the ball constantly. The worst one in this movie is Damien’s aunt, Ann, played by Lee Grant. She had the easiest access to intelligence regarding people who suspected Damien’s true identity. All of these people, naturally, then stay alive long enough to awaken her husband’s suspicions. Did Ann really need to wait until Richard had the sacrificial daggers in his hands? (Though that moment when she yells “DAMIEN!!!” in that orgasmic way is a bucket of laughs.)

Aunt Ann--before going out in a blaze of glory

3) The way Joan Hart and Charles Warren transform into crazy religious fanatics irritates me. Yes, if the Antichrist really did exist, and you knew the truth, you’d likely be terrified. But how does panicking help? Besides, if they watched Father Brennan in the first movie, they’d know that rushing up to a main character and screaming at them to “take Christ into your heart RIGHT NOW” doesn’t help at all.

Supplements

Pseudoscience Pill: N/A

Political Pill: 5%
There is some talk about whether Richard’s agricultural company should pursue a strategy that would likely lead to famine. (If you guessed that the evil Antichrist allies within the company proposed the strategy, you get a sticker!) However, the opposing strategies for the company are so far apart on the axis of good and evil that the politics, if there really is any, is very shallow.

Likelihood of choking: 0%

Tune in next Sunday for the Omen III--the Sam Neill version!