Damien Omen 2: Horror
A teenage years take on Satan would be interesting, this doesn't commit to it and is too split between not knowing whether to be silly or overly serious. What this means is that the silly moments are a wonderful respite from an otherwise dull film.
Damien Omen 2: Horror
this isn't bad, but compared to the first film, it's extremely underwhelming. it's pretty corny which can actually make a film more enjoyable sometimes, i just think that going from the omen to this was a bit of a letdown.
Meanwhile, at the academy, Damien's new commander, Sgt. Neff (Lance Henriksen), takes the boy under his wing and warns him not to draw any attention to himself until the right moment. He also points him to Revelation, chapter 13, in which Damien reads about the Beast. Finding its number, 666, scarred onto his scalp, he flees the academy grounds in a terrified panic, distraught at being chosen as the vehicle for Satan's will.
Hiding out in the lonely Quiet Corner in Northeastern Connecticut, Tracy Allen has been an avid horror movie and music fan since she was a young girl. Growing up in the '80s, Tracy has lived through many a change in musical stylings and movie trends, and uses that history to come up with as many colorful, well-rounded reviews as possible.
Firing on all cylinders, The Omen is an exemplary horror film. Working from a well-constructed script by David Seltzer (Shining Through, Prophecy), director Richard Donner grounds the story firmly in reality. The fantastical elements are easy to swallow, as each and every incident in the plot could be mere coincidence. Peck brings a gravitas to the production, leading a strong cast in which Remick also holds her own. Even the six-year-old Stephens, who never acted before and did very little after, is convincingly malevolent.
While The Exorcist remains the be-all and end-all of occult horror, The Omen franchise as a whole is more consistent. The first three Omen films comprise a cohesive trilogy, while Part IV and the remake each offer a fresh, if flawed, perspective on the material. Between the movies, commentaries, interviews, and featurettes, The Omen Collection contains over 30 hours of content, making it an unbelievable value and a must-have for any horror collector.
Although The Omen received mixed reviews upon its release, it is currently regarded as a horror film classic in most circles. Now, 20th Century Studios is developing a prequel to the horror flick currently titled The First Omen.
At the time of its release in 1976, The Omen earned over $60 million at the domestic box office. The financial success of the film resulted in two sequels, Damien: Omen II (1978) and Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981), neither of which performed as well as their predecessor. A Canadian made-for-television fourth film titled Omen IV: The Awakening was released in 1991, though it failed to result in the many TV-exclusive Omen sequels that producers had hoped for. Finally, The Omen was re-imagined in 2006 with Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles as the Thorn couple, though the horror remake also failed to capture the magic of the original film.
At this time, there aren't any story details regarding The First Omen, though its title alone suggests it will focus on a narrative unrelated to the Thorn family or Damien, though this is merely speculation. As development moves along, fans will certainly learn more about the prequel in the years and months ahead, but for the time being, perhaps fans can rest easy knowing 20th Century Studios is at least attempting to tell a new horror tale as opposed to directly remaking the original Omen again.
I think this entire trilogy is solid. The first one is the best, but two and three are very good and have plenty of creepy moments too. I liked William Holden and Lee Grant in this one. I wish that Jonathan Scott-Taylor had made more films he was very good as Damian. I quite liked how in this film Damian is afraid when he learns who he is and he fights it, I wish it had focused a bit more on his struggle to deal with who he was.
The bulk of the score offers reprises of classic pieces fromthe original such as "The Demise of Mrs Baylock" and "The DogsAttack", only with more lavish orchestration. They are great to hear,but lack the immediate potency of the original. The opening theme is alittle different, a far more visceral and base choral chant, accompanied by theunnerving tones of a jew's harp. Highlights include the frantic, frenetic"Runaway Train" and "False Temple", whose pipe organ lendsit a particularly apocalyptic air that is almost a precursor to The FinalConflict. The more tender, jaunty "Snowmobiles" is the onlyreal equivalent here of the "New Ambassador" music from the firstmovie, which punctuated the horror and allowed the listener a few breathers -don't expect any breathers in the sequel, which is pretty much chilling horrormusic from start to end.
As was fairly common at the time, the score was recorded forthe movie in Los Angeles but reuse fees meant an album was impossible, soGoldsmith and conductor Lionel Newman traveled to London and recorded the scorewith the National Philharmonic specifically for the album. This DeluxeEdition from Varese Sarabande actually includes both recordings; there aren'ttoo many notable differences, just a few moments of extra music in the filmrecordings (including the important "Snowmobiles"), but this is ascore good enough to warrant effectively listening to twice in one go. Itoccupies a slightly strange place in between the masterpieces of film music thatmake up the first and third scores in the series and so is sometimes overlookedbut, despite not quite being up to their standards, this is still a wonderfulfilm score.
Some of the performances are quite good. Jonathan Scott-Taylor is simultaneously angelic and demonic as Damien, whose lovely face can shift into pure wickedness. He does not play Damien as evil from the get-go. In fact, he recoils in horror when he learns his destiny, running from the academy after reading Scripture that suggests he is the Antichrist. However, his smirk at the deaths and injuries at the Thorn Industries lab, and the chilling conclusion of his walking away from the burning Thorn Museum, suggest that sense of evil emerging. That Scott-Taylor could suggest regret at having to kill someone he loved made Damien sympathetic, or almost so. One does not know if his scream was that of grief or part of the plan to help find the body.
Holden is strong as Richard Thorn, a man who slowly, too slowly, realizes his nephew is the literal Spawn of Satan. As a businessman with a loving family, Holden is also sympathetic and caring. His horror at the realization that Damien is responsible for various deaths, including of loved ones, is excellent. Lucas Donat as Damien's cousin Mark is also good, that of someone who has taken in his cousin as a brother to discover that there is danger behind the eyes.
Released 40 years ago this week (on June 25, 1976), the occult horror film would mark the only significant acting role Stephens ever played, but it had a vast and lasting impact -- it revived Damien"), launched a wave of Antichrist-themed movies, and generated one of the most familiar (and overused) pieces of music in horror-movie history. In honor of the film turning four decades old, here are a few facts you need to know.1. A lot of "Omen" viewers have thought that rhyming-prophecy quotation actually comes from the Bible. It does not; screenwriter David Seltzer made it up. In fact, he claimed he'd never even read the Bible before being commissioned to write the screenplay.
Damien: Omen II is a 1978 American British supernatural horror movie directed by Don Taylor and is the sequel to 1976 movie The Omen. It stars William Holden, Lee Grant, Robert Foxworth, Lew Ayers, Sylvia Sidney, Jonathan Scott-Taylor, Nicholas Pryor, Lance Henriksen, Allan Arbus and was distributed by 20th Century Fox.
Seemingly full of board meetings and brooding talk of destiny, Damien: Omen II would appear to be the quintessential Carter-era supernatural-horror film. It plumbs the same idiotic religious dread as its 1976 predecessor, with a higher and even more gratuitous body count, though its subtext and thematic elements make it of more than passing interest.
While demonic undertones continually propel this film series forward, Damien, The Omen II never ceases to give away actual intentions and methods until the right moment, and in doing so, delivers thought provoking chills in the process. While consistently hoping good prevails over evil, it becomes increasingly clear that this will not be the case, and the overall premise can be biblically frightening.
Damien: Omen II is a 1978 American horror film about Damien the Antichrist who, now thirteen years old, finally learns of his destiny under the guidance of an unholy disciple of Satan. Meanwhile dark forces begin to eliminate all those who suspect the child's true identity. The film was the second installment in The Omen series, set seven years after the first film, and was followed by a third installment, Omen III: The Final Conflict, in 1981.
Directed by Don Taylor, Damien: Omen II is the follow-up to hit horror film The Omen of 1976. Richard Donner was originally replaced by Mike Hodges, but then Hodges was replaced by Don Taylor (but some of Hodges scenes still remained in the final cut). The film was met with mixed reviews and much less favorable than the original.
Robert and Keith head to this graveyard and find the woman's grave next to the grave of Robert's true son - when they remove the cover of Damien's mother's grave they find a jackal's corpse in place of a human's, confirming Damien was not of the natural world. Keith understandably becomes alarmed and wanted to leave but Robert wanted to uncover the grave of his son in the hope it would contain a similar corpse and give him some hope that his son could be alive - to his horror, this isn't the case and the grave holds the remains of a human child - the skull having a wound showing it was murdered at birth. 041b061a72