The Duke On Damien - Omen II
Back in the 1970's, a fella by the name of Richard Donner made a film regarding a child of supernatural origin, a child that had frightening powers, and who was the subject of an unsuccessful assassination attempt perpetrated by a leading politician.
That film was Superman, and it was quite well regarded.
But he made another film which followed the same plot, give or take a decapitation or two, or a jackal here and there. That film was known as The Omen Part I - My Son, The Antichrist. It was incredibly successful, and so in 1978, Omen II - I Was A Teenage Antichrist was released, directed not by Donner, but by TV-Veteran Don Taylor.
Sadly, it didn't live up to its predecessor, but was still far from an embarrassment to the Omen franchise. That embarrassment would arrive a few years later, in the form of Omen IV, as prophesised in The Book Of Forbidden Sequels;
"And Lo, From the world of television,
Will arise a fourth where there should only be three,
And a little girl will be an evil motherfucker,
But will be defeated by crushing mediocrity."
The Omen succeeded on a number of levels, and very few of them had anything to do with the old scary-type shenanigans. For one thing, it was more a detective story than a horror film, focussing mainly on the efforts of Gregory Peck and David Warner as they trekked across Europe in order to find out if Peck's adopted youngster, Damien, is indeed The Devil and so on.
Also, Donner's film enjoyed indulging in a bit of the old intellectual tomfoolery. There were serious questions at stake, like how sure one needs to be that Satan himself has manifested via your son, before you start flinging knives about, even if they do have very impressive crucifixes on the end.
Like the old puzzler about how if you could go back in time, would you shoot Hitler's great grandmother? All that theological and speculative hoo-hah.
In addition to all this, even though the character's harped on about the New Testament Book Of Relaxation or some such, the writer's realised fairly quickly that The Bible said very little about this whole antichrist malarkey, and that most of it was either metaphor or poetic wordplay. Thus, they invented their own little shanty, about The Jews Returning To Zion and so on, and just pretended it was in the Bible. Maybe in that Apocrypha that the Catholics are so fond of.
Article comments
1 - Jim Carruthers
You forgot to mention, in the commentary to "Near Darkish" Lance Hendrickson drove around in character, picked up hitchhikers, and then really didn't say what happened with them.
2 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Yeah. What was he doing with those youngsters i wonder?
"oh, aren't you bishop from the Alien Part 2?"
"yeah. i see you got an acoustic guitar there."
"uh-huh"
"ever seen Henry?"
I want answers man. He thinks he can go and make Aliens Fight Predators and no-ones gonna remember those shallow graves by the roadside.
3 - Chris Kent
I have always had a fond place in my heart for this sequel to The Omen.......Is this as bad as the sequel to The Exorcist? No, but only because The Exorcist 2 had Richard Burton and as everyone knew back in the 1970s, to make a truly bad film one must first begin with Richard Burton - please refer to The Medusa Touch for additional evidence.....
I love the scene in Omen II when Damien and his school prof have a "war" of knowledge.......Damien would have made a great contestant on Jeopardy......the elevator-where-the-doctor-who-knows-too-much-and-thus-gets-cut-in-half scene was also a real lulu......
But what truly sets The Omen II apart is Lee Grant.....if ever a woman was more perfectly suited as the stepmom of Satan, I just can't think of one.....this fiery broad has always looked rather possessed anyway, and killing her off was a terrible choice by the producers.......Rather than Sam Neill in that horrible Omen 3 flick, we could have had an entirely new franchise spinoff starring Lee Grant - Satan's Stepmom - Heaven Help Us!. I certainly would have spent my hard-earned dollar to see that.....
4 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Chris, that sounds like a winner right there. Stans Stepmom indeed. lol. as for the knowledge-showdown, i actually meant to include that in the review. That was a classic right there. I actually have a soft spot for all 3 omen flicks (fuck that Awakening. that SO doesn't count)being raised with them and so on. It was fun seeing this again, although the 1st one is the, y'know, "respectable" entry in the series. As for part 3 - I Dated The Antichrist, i can't remember a lot about it, but do recall being quite scared as a youngster by that visitation by christ at the end. I also seem to remember aparticularly unpleasant bout with an iron, and old sam doin his I Hate You Is What to a staue of Jesus.
Finally, Exotrcist II, whilst a pile of utter rancid toss, had a least ONE good scene, the dream sequence with the mosquitos flying about and so on. That was very impressive as i recall.
Thanks for the coments, pals.
5 - Chris Kent
There is something about horror film sequels......my personal favorite being Amityville 3D......Any horror film producer with the perverse audacity to cast Tony Roberts as the lead is residing on a plateau the rest of us could only hope to dream about......
6 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Good god man! Amityville 3D. The very thought. As far as The Duke is concerned, Amytiville II - The Possession is the damn pinnacle of the franchise and no mistake. That right there was a damn psychadelic masterpiece of bizarre head-fuckery. It had incest, it had weird exorcist rip-offs, and it had a guy blowin the hell out of his family in an amazing shadow-drenched massacre. Could have done without the whole "screwing-his-sister-with-the-gun" carry on before he shot her though. I mean, really, satan, what kind of sick fuck are you anyway?
7 - Chris Kent
I walked out of Amityville Horror bored to tears - the only true monster in that film was Margot Kidder in nighty...the horror, the horror.....
I walked out of Amityville II in serious need of therapy - which I suppose means it was damn good. Any film with James Olson as a priest and Burt Young in a dirty undershirt is certainly in tune with horrifying imagery.....Amityville II delivers the goods, and I guess it's about time we rightfully place this horror sequel on the mountain it deserves, resting comfortably next to Piranha 2 - The Spawning, Demon Seed and the greatest unheralded horror masterpiece in history - Spielberg's Always.