Summary:
The Antichrist plots his future moves while a cabal of monks try to assassinate him.
My Thoughts:
The Omen series is weird. The first film has a genuinely good plot and some truly thrilling moments, but honestly, it pretty much tells the most interesting parts of Damien’s story. You would think that, as this series is about the antichrist’s rise to power, there would be an increasing presence of evil as the series goes on, but that’s not the case; as Damien’s power grows, the series’ quality wanes, and by this entry, I found myself almost mind-numbingly bored by what happened onscreen.
What’s worse, this film doesn’t at all know what it wants to be or what side it wants the viewers to take. Who is the protagonist, the Antichrist or the cabal of nameless monks? What are we, the viewers, rooting for to happen? Should we be cheering on the antichrist for him to bring the end of the world, or should be rooting for the monks? I don’t know. I’ve watched this movie start to finish and I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel at all, except, I know I certainly wasn’t scared. I thought this was supposed to be a horror movie, and there was absolutely nothing thrilling about this film at all.
Let’s talk about the journey of our (apparent) protagonist since the franchise’s beginning. Damien in the first film is completely unaware that he is the antichrist; in fact, he spends a good deal of the film just wandering around doing nothing at all- the most evil thing he does is ride his tricycle past his mom while she’s standing precariously close to the edge of a balcony and, in doing so, prompt her to fall over the edge. In the second film (“The Omen II: Damien”), Damien learns his true nature and accepts it; he ends up killing his adopted brother with an aneurism in the end. The first and second films sort of complete Damien’s arc as far as his transition into evil, so when we reach this third film we really have nowhere to go: Damien himself has accepted his fate, he’s resigned himself to becoming evil. When we start this film, Damien straight up lays out his plans for one of his lackeys, something I would assume Satan wouldn’t be cool with. I mean, if I were the antichrist, I certainly wouldn’t go about spouting off that I was the son of Satan and had plans to rule the world; that’s how you end up in a loony bin, bud.
Anyways, now the full-grown Antichrist, played by Sam Neil (“Possession”) goes about his life prepping for the day he’ll rule the world. As he goes about his life, this gaggle of monks tries to assassinate him in various ways, and the various deaths of these monks are where the film earns its R rating, and also where it gets it’s body count. The monks come at Sam Neil one by one, and he kills them as they appear. The other “Omen” movies had at least a few cool kills in them, but honestly this film only had one memorable kill, and that one was so far over the top that it became laughable instead of thrilling (TV studio death- if you end up watching it- though I don’t recommend it). Other than killing off holy men, Damien’s favorite hobby seems to be ranting blasphemously at a statue of Jesus crucified backwards, which he does a few times throughout the film. He has long monologues that essentially boil down to the Antichrist saying: “I’m gonna beat you! Just you wait!” like a spoilt child, over and over again.
SPOILERS
The ending of the film is almost laughably anticlimactic, and in the end, Good wins, Damien dies, and a Bible verse is shown onscreen from Revelations, saying that when Christ returns peace will reign on Earth… Great! I can’t wait for that day to come! But… Isn’t this supposed to be a horror film? Again, I question how anyone could’ve thought this might’ve been scary. Where is the horror in this horror flick? No, take that a step further, where is any modicum of tension in this movie? What is the point in this film other than a cash grab? I don’t think there is one.
Verdict:
You know, as I watched this movie I was bored and couldn’t really bring myself to care about anything that was happening, but I wasn’t offended by how bad it was; now, after I’ve written this review, I’m kind of surprised I sat through the whole thing. NOTHING HAPPENED. This has got to be one of the worst horror sequels since “The Exorcist II: Heretic”, but at least here we didn’t have to witness James Earl Jones in a locust costume.
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