Movie Review: Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

Sometimes known as just The Final Conflict (as it is on the poster up there), Omen 3 reminds me a lot of another relatively hated second sequel - Poltergeist 3. I mean, both O3 and P3 were decidedly nowhere near as good as the original films they were based on, but they were also, at least to me, a slight improvement over the first sequels which did nobody justice. The Final Conflict seems to be universally, um, unloved by fans, but I can't lie. I liked it - if only for Sam Neill, who may be the movie's only saving grace.

Damien Thorn is all growed up now, in his 30s and running the internationally successful Thorn Company. Unlike the Damien of Omen 2, this Damien is well aware of his status as Antichrist and has all kinds of acolytes and fun stuff like that. When science discovers a sign in the sky related to the arrival of the Second Coming, Damien works to defeat his rival before it can get to him. Meanwhile, a group of priests work desperately to hunt Damien down, armed with the only weapons on earth that can destroy him for good.

I guess I shouldn't like Omen 3 (seems to be the popular thing to do), but I can't help that there's something about it that I sort of dig. The story is not overly ridiculous or outlandish, and in fact is a good continuation of the overall Omen story, where Damien has finally risen to power and must fight against his one real enemy in order to take over the earth or something. The Second Coming of Jesus Christ would definitely put a damper in his plans. Anyway. I will say that the story of the movie does fall a bit into the realm of the hokey - and the wildly inappropriate - a little bit in the third act with several scenes of infanticide. That means that they kill babies. Totally wrong. Also, I have to admit that not only is the ending incredibly anticlimactic and disappointment, it is also quite possible the most LAME ending I have ever seen.

But you know what? Sam Neill is in this. And with his performance as Damien, he's able to save the movie - at least for me. He's what any good Antichrist should be - evil and charming and sexy at the same time. He's got a smile that makes you think he's cute and he's got a smile that makes you want to run out of the room. The dialogue is kinda stupid sometimes, but somehow Neill makes it work for him. There's this one scene where Damien goes into a room in his attic that has a statue of Jesus on the cross - with his head turned backwards. Damien just starts rambling all this stuff, apparently to God or Jesus, how sick he is of their morality bullshit and how he wants hell on earth. Out of anybody else's mouth, I don't know how this scene would have played out. Neill manages to get through the whole thing without going over-the-top ridiculous at all and instead gives a hell of a performance for this monologue. 

Two things that everybody seems to be compelled to bitch about with Omen 3 are the timeline and the daggers. Omen 1 came out in 1976. Omen 3 came out in 1981. Clearly, Damien could not have turned 32 by that time unless he grew up in another dimension (which, in this story, is not entirely out of the realm of believability). Whatever. I don't care. What time period the movie takes place in is irrelevant to the movie itself and should just be looked at as typical Hollywood trickery. Next.

The other thing is the daggers. In The Omen, my main man Bugenhagen (still love that name) gives Robert Thorn the Seven Daggers of Meggido and tells him that the way to destroy the Antichrist is to stab him with the daggers in the form of a cross on his body. Admittedly, I was bit confused when the seven priests in Omen 3 each took a dagger for their chance to kill the Antichrist, thinking like everybody else that they needed all seven at the same time. Apparently what I did not retain from The Omen was that the first dagger would extinguish his physical life force, and the rest his spiritual life force. They could use one dagger to kill him, but his soul or whatever would still live and he'd be able to come back in another form later. So these priests are pretty much slackers, and think a half-assed attempt at destroying the Antichrist will do for now.

Actually, the priests suck at everything having to do with their assassination attempt. First, they do the thing with dividing up the daggers instead of all seven of them ambushing Damien at once or something. Then, the first assassin dies a really crazy death that he basically causes himself. He's trying to kill Damien while he's doing a TV interview and the priest climbs up in the rafters with all the electrical crap and... I don't even really remember how he manages it, but the priest ends up swinging from the ceiling ON FIRE with everybody just standing there watching him. Two other priests get themselves trapped underground, one gets thrown from a bridge... these guys just suck. But whoever thought that priests would make good assassins anyway? I mean, they should've hired a professional and been done with it.

Though neither sequel has been able to live up to the awesomeness of the original Omen movie, I can't say that I entirely hated Omen 3: The Final Conflict. Sam Neill does a lot of the heavy lifting but there are also some unintentionally funny scenes (a guy getting killed by a pack of adorable little foxhounds) and some disturbing scenes (off-camera baby murders by drowning and ironing) that make this movie at least an interesting one to watch. 

And even though I didn't really hate this movie, it does make me more than weary for the third sequel, Omen IV: The Awakening. I don't know if I'm going to subject myself to that yet. 

Horror Movie Locations I'd Like to Visit

Last November, I took a fantastical trip to New York City, where about 9 million movies have been shot. Only being there for a few days, I made it to just one famous filming location...

... the firehouse in Tribeca that served as the exterior location for the Ghostbusters firehouse. I also saw The Dakota, the apartment building made (in)famous for being not only the location of the murder of John Lennon, but also was yet another exterior location for the apartment building in Rosemary's Baby (didn't get a picture though... dangit).

Anyway, it turns out that there are a bunch of cool places in the US and abroad that horror fans can visit and relive some of the classic scenes from their favorite films. Here are some places that I personally would like to go to - even though I'll probably never get to see any of them!

The Night of the Living Dead Cemetery

(Evans City Cemetery, Evans City, Pennsylvania)

Thanks to Christine from Fascination with Fear, whose picture of her next to that monument in the middle got me thinking about this post to begin with! On the outside, I'm sure this cemetery is not that much different than many others, but to this zombie film fan, going to the place where modern zombie movies were born would be like going to heaven.

The Poltergeist House

(4267 Roxbury Street, Simi Valley, California)

Well, duh! Of course I want to go here! And how weird is it that the house looks kinda exactly the same as it did in 1982? 

The Orphanage House

(Llanes, Asturias, Spain)

This is just a still from the movie but here's a link to Flickr where a guy took a picture of the actual house: http://www.flickr.com/photos/francesco_pics/5055639398/. I don't know how to describe this house other than a monstrosity of beauty. It immediately got my attention when I first saw the movie and has stayed in my future-home-owner dreams ever since. It's in Spain, though, so that sucks.

The House on Haunted Hill

(a.k.a Ennis House, Los Angeles, California)

Okay, not only was this house (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) used as the exterior for the famous House on Haunted Hill in the Vincent Price B-movie of the same name, it was also used for the exteriors of the mansion in which Angel, Spike, and Drusilla dwelled in the second season of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Poof! Two awesome locations for the price of one!

The Omen Church

(All Saints Church, Fulham, London, England)

Oh, the fun I would have taking pictures here. I would gladly go out and find my own metal spike or lightening rod to reenact the spectacular death of Father Brennan in The Omen. I'm pretty sure they would just kick me out and tell me that I'm going to hell or something.

The Amityville House

(112 Ocean Avenue, Long Island, New York)

Yes, I know the owners are probably sick of people gawking over their house, but they should have known what they were signing up for. And while I'm not the biggest fan of the original movie, I guess I can't deny that this is one of the most famous movie locations in the US. 

The Stanley Hotel

(Estes Park, Colorado)

Though not the actual hotel that is in the movie The Shining (that's the Timberline Lodge in Mount Hood, Oregon), this is the place where Stephen King stayed way back in '73 and which inspired him to write the famous novel. While briefly living in Colorado two years ago, I seriously thought out taking a trip to see it, but Estes Park was way too far away and I never had time.

The Exorcist Steps

(M street, Georgetown, Washington, D.C.)

So I didn't even know that this very steep set of stairs that Father Karras fell down was a famous location to visit until I watched a feature on the Hot Fuzz DVD where Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost go there and play around for a while. Forget the Washington Monument or the White House - if I'm ever in DC, The  Exorcist steps will be the first thing I want to do!

I know that some of these are kind of obvious ones, but whatever! That's all I got for now. So what say you? Any horror movie locations on your radar?

Happy Birthday, Damien!

Today is a day for all Satan-worshippers to rejoice, for unto this day - the sixth day of the sixth month at the sixth hour - He has been borne a son and his name was Damien.

Oh, don't you just want to pinch those chubby cheeks?! Little rascal. 

Remember, if you wish to show your love and devotion to Damien, you could always hang yourself out of a window...

...but I wouldn't recommend it. Instead, just get him a little Rottweiler friend (no baboons, please) to help you protect him and stay out of his way when he's trying to get rid of his enemies, i.e. another child inside his adoptive mamma's belly.

Oh, look how nonchalant he is about his conquests. Our Damien is going to grow up to be one strong and powerful man. He makes me so proud! Okay, all together now:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAMIEN!

Movie Review: Damien: Omen II (1978)

So, as madly in love with The Omen as I am, I figured it was silly of me having not given a fair chance to the sequels yet. I made the mistake of watching the remake and was hoping that the sequels wouldn't be as bad. And yet... not a fan. Not a fan of Damien: Omen II. Really not.

The Antichrist returns: Robert and Kathy Thorn are dead, and their son Damien is sent to live with an uncle, Robert's brother Richard and his wife Ann. He attends military school with his cousin Mark and soon starts to receive clues about his true identity. At the same time, several people try to warn Richard and Ann that the child they're raising is the Antichrist.

Bugenhagen makes a return at the beginning of the film, trying to convince a colleague of Damien's evilness. He takes him to an archeological dig that has revealed Yigeal's wall which clearly depicts a painting of the Antichrist looking exactly like Damien. However, the two men are soon taken care of by those evil forces that seem to protect Damien and in a great turn of events, they are first trapped in the dig by a cave-in and then are apparently suffocated by the sand that pours in on top of them. The end of Bugenhagen. Me is sad.

By the way, I love the name Bugenhagen. I might just change my last name to Bugenhagen. And then I will only want to be addressed as Bugenhagen.

Anyway. So as the movie's title is Damien, the entire movie seems to be only about Damien and him finding out who he is and killing everyone who knows who he really is. And that brings me to the question of "What the hell (pun intended) is the point of this movie?" My idea of a sequel is that it should move the original story forward and introduce some new element. But all we get from this movie is Damien's knowledge of his identity, which the audience ALREADY KNOWS. And I kept wondering where this story was going and it ended up going nowhere.

We've seen the first movie, we know Damien is evil and in fact, I always thought that Damien himself knew he was evil too. That smile he gives in the last frame always seemed to me like a smile of triumph. Like, "That's right, bitches, I'm the Devil. Recognize!" He's killed his future sibling, his mom, and his dad has been taken care of. He's only six years old and now he's more powerful than his father could ever have been.

And yet, only seven years later, the pre-teen Damien apparently has no recollection of these events and has no idea of the power he possesses. Why? Who knows. But as in the first film, there are plenty of Devil worshippers surrounding him and protecting him, including his commander at the military academy (Lance Henriksen) and one accomplice who isn't revealed until the end and is a pleasant surprise. It was a good revelation, but even that shock ending was just too... meager. I wanted more. I wanted a story that was more advanced and revealed more maybe about what Damien is supposed to DO here on Earth as the Antichrist. Just what his agenda is going to be. But like I said, by the end we still don't know much more than what we already knew from the original film. Little bit of a disappointment there.

Jonathan Scott-Taylor as the new Damien is an impressive young actor and pulls off his role with talent and ease. I'm also impressed that they found a child actor who actually looks a lot like the Damien from the first film and is therefore very believable as a grown-up version of that same person.

The movie is not without its gory out-of-place highlights, similar to the decapitation in the first movie. I watched the elevator cable slice that dude in half with such glee that I think I made my dad worried about my sanity. David Warner getting his head cut off by that glass pane in the original film was always a shock to me because Gregory Peck is the star of the movie, and Gregory Peck is not usually in movies where people get decapitated so beautifully. I honestly wasn't expecting this kind of carnage in the sequel, especially the elevator scene. But there is great suspense as the elevator first plunges several stories, then stops, then the cable coming flying down right toward it. Ohhhhhhhh, something awesome is going to happen! The cable cuts through the elevator itself and then - in slow motion - cleanly and bloodily cuts the guy in half at the stomach. Yes, there are intestines. Love it.

So Damien: Omen II is really about nothing new and doesn't come close to being nearly as awesome as its predecessor. It's not a bad movie, though. There are some interesting scenes and some unintentionally comic scenes. Do I even have to mention the ice skating part? The guy floating in the water underneath the ice? I should have been horrified, but instead I thought it was kind of funny. Maybe I'm the Antichrist, too. And the crow attack? Pretty cool, but also a little funny at the same time.

Sidenote: While doing some research on this movie, I read one link where some book had the original Omen listed as one of the "fifty worst movies of all time" (as of 1978). Whuhhh??? The rest of the movies listed were crap that I have never heard of or want to hear of, but to call The FREAKING Omen one of the worst films ever? I am appalled.