Franchises: The Omen. Damien: Omen II (1978)

They must have been proud of that tagline because

the narrator in the trailer says it three times.

When it comes to classic and acclaimed movies that spawn a good number of sequels, more often than not the case is that most critics and many general viewers and fans dismiss these other films as unnecessary and inferior, whereas I can usually enjoy most of them on their own merits; The Omen, however, is one case where I pretty much side with everyone else. While the original is still a classic of the genre and one of my favorite horror films, the franchise as a whole is very problematic for me because none of the sequels or the 2006 remake are even in the same stratosphere as the first film. What's more, I feel that the series didn't capitalize and expand upon the great foundation that it had, which could have made for an effective franchise all-around. Case in point, this first sequel, which was the entry in the original trilogy that I saw last and, for a while, was the only one I owned on DVD after having bought the original and The Final Conflict on VHS. I'm pretty sure that I bought this in the summer of 2003 and my opinion when I first watched it back then is the same now: it's not horrible but it's certainly not great, either. Coming off the amazing flick that was the original, this feels like just an average, 1970's horror film. While competently-made, it has none of the atmosphere, eeriness, or style of the film that spawned it, and while it was also able to get really big actors that you normally don't see in these types of movies, like William Holden and Lee Grant, as well as many respected character-actors, they're not used anywhere near as effectively as Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, and the like. Ultimately, though, this sequel's biggest failing is that it comes across as nothing more than a cash-in on a hit movie, one that ups the elaborate and bloody nature of the death scenes (as many horror sequels would do in the years to come) but whose story and characters aren't as engaging, making for a pretty hollow viewing experience.

In Jerusalem, Carl Bugenhagen, the former exorcist and archeologist who gave Robert Thorn the daggers with which to kill Damien, meets with his friend, Michael Morgan, and tells him of what's happened in the past week, most significantly that Damien is the Antichrist. He asks Michael to deliver a box containing the daggers and a letter about Damien's true identity to the boy's aunt and uncle, Ann and Richard, in Chicago, who are now his guardians, but Michael is unconvinced. To prove it to him, Bugenhagen takes him to a recently-discovered mural known as Yigael's Wall, which is said to depict the face of the Antichrist in the various stages of his life. Once there, Michael sees Damien's face on the wall, but both he and Bugenhagen are buried alive when the tunnel beneath the underground temple collapses. Seven years later, the now twelve-year old Damien is enrolled with his cousin, Mark, in the military academy that their fathers attended, and soon, mysterious deaths begin plaguing the family. Richard's Aunt Marion, who hates Damien, seeing him as a bad influence on Mark, and threatens to cut Richard out of her will if he doesn't send  to separate schools, suffers a fatal heart attack that night when a raven appears in her room; Joan Hart, a journalist who covered the excavation of Yigael's Wall and other artifacts, which are being shipped to the Thorn Museum in Chicago, and, through her investigation, learns that Damien is the Antichrist, meets a grisly death on a supposedly deserted highway; and Bill Atherton, Thorn Industries' senior manager, who is staunchly-opposed to a radical agriculture plan proposed by younger manager Paul Buher, falls through the ice of a frozen lake during a hockey game and drowns. Meanwhile, Damien, who's been experiencing fluctuations of mental power that he can't explain, is told by his commander, Sergeant Neff, not to attract attention and points him to the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Revelations. Upon reading it, Damien finds the "666" birthmark on his scalp and learns once and for all that he's the Antichrist. At first terrified, Damien grows to accept his destiny and even becomes proud of his heritage, going on to use his power to kill anyone who stands in his way, including Mark. Now, with the death toll mounting, it's up to Richard, who eventually discovers the truth, to do what his brother couldn't seven years before.

Don Taylor

The film had some trouble getting a suitable director in that they started with one but finished with another (something that would happen again years on the fourth film). Since Richard Donner was off directing Superman at this point, the producers hired Mike Hodges, who directed Get Carter and Pulp with Michael Caine, as well as The Terminal Man. But, immediately into production, Hodges' perfectionist and rather slow style of filmmaking ground the film to a halt and put it behind schedule, which prompted producer Harvey Bernhard to replace him with Don Taylor. Taylor was an actor who, in the late 50's, made the jump to directing, helming episodes of a number of different television shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Mod Squad, The Wild, Wild West, Night Gallery, and The Flying Nun and, movie-wise, had done Escape from the Planet of the Apes (one of the most entertaining entries in that series) and The Island of Dr. Moreau with Burt Lancaster. He was hired because he had a reputation of bringing movies in on time and on budget (when he came aboard, the film wrapped only a day late) but, most significantly, he had acted with William Holden in the 50's and had remained friends with him ever since. Taylor showed off some technical competence with the movie as it looks really good but, as we'll get into, the script didn't give him much to work with in terms of character and story. After this film, Taylor's last theatrical film was The Final Countdown in 1980 and he would spend the rest of his directing career doing TV movies throughout the 1980's. He died in 1998 at the age of 78. And while Mike Hodges ended up getting canned, what did he shoot does remain in the finished film and, as a result, he has some screenplay credit as well.

Although he may have passed on the opportunity to play Robert Thorn in the first film, its enormous success ensured that William Holden would not hesitate to star in the sequel as Thorn's brother and Damien's new guardian, Richard. I say "star," though, only in the sense that he's listed first in the credits because Holden has very little significant baring on the film's story until the last section of the third act. For the most part, he does little more than run Thorn Industries, enjoy quality time with his family, and endure various personal and unexpected tragedies, like the death of his Aunt Marion, his general manager Bill Atherton's drowning, and the sudden death of his son, Mark. He comes across as a pretty good guy, staging an elaborate birthday party for Mark, siding with Atherton on the opinion of Paul Buher's unorthodox and undoubtedly unethical agriculture plan and angrily chastising Buher when he later puts it into motion without his approval, although he's a little on the reclusive side when it comes to journalists and very touchy about the subject of his late brother and the way in which he died. He's convinced that Robert was simply mentally ill and becomes quite angry whenever somebody brings it up and tries to tell him that there may have been other circumstances, even when it's his friend and museum curator, Charles Warren. He only begins to suspect that there's something unusual about Damien when he learns that he was the only one not affected by the toxic fumes that were expelled during a sudden explosion at the plant and is also told that Damien has a different cell structure. Still, he initially refuses to believe Bugenhagen's claims that Damien is the Antichrist when Warren shows him the letter the archeologist intended to send them years before, writing it off as nothing more than the ravings of a crazy old man, but, after he reads the letter himself, acknowledging that it is incorrect in stating that Robert was killed while trying to stab Damien in a church, and Mark dies while he was with Damien, his doubt slowly ebbs away. He's completely convinced when he travels to New York City to meet up with Warren, who's now frightened out of his mind after having seen Yigael's Wall, and upon looking at the wall himself, sees Damien's face on it. Now realizing that his brother and everyone else was right all along, Richard heads back to Chicago to try to kill Damien with the daggers like Robert tried to but, before he can, his wife reveals a secret she's been keeping that proves deadly for him.

Lee Grant has even less to do as Richard's wife, Ann. The only thing she does for most of the movie is act rather frantic and get onto Richard whenever he begins to think that there's something strange going on with Damien, especially when he shows her Bugenhagen's letter about him. Like everyone else, she's not too fond of Aunt Marion, who treats her as much like crap as she does Damien, becoming especially angry when she feels the need to remind her that neither Damien nor Mark is her son (she's Richard's second wife). In fact, the only times Ann seems happy is when she's taking part in some family activities and spending time with the boys, whom she does dote on like any mother would. Her closeness to Damien proves to be more than just maternal instinct, however, when at the end of the film, she stabs Richard with the daggers meant for Damien, revealing herself to be one of the Satanists who are aiding in his rise to power. This makes the film a little more interesting for repeated viewings because you now know that Anne was trying to throw Richard and everyone else off the trail to finding out who Damien is and you're also given another reason why she doesn't like Aunt Marion. That said, she did seem genuinely crushed when Mark died and she also tried her best to keep Richard from getting his hands on the daggers, telling him, "For my sake, Richard, don't," suggesting that, despite her devotion to Damien, she did want to continue her life with her family while keeping them from discovering Damien's identity so that they wouldn't have to die, although she would do what she had to if push came to shove. That's by far the most interesting thing about Ann but they do nothing with it since it's not revealed until the end and, to be quite honest, despite Grant saying what she hoped would be the reaction to the reveal, I find myself not caring that much anyway since nothing else about her was memorable. In any case, Ann learns that loyalty means little to Damien when he arranges for her to be burned alive in an explosion after she stabs Richard.

One thing that is commendable about the movie's screenplay is that it tries to make Damien much more of a character than he was in the first movie, and a rather complex one at that. At the start of the movie, Jonathan Scott-Taylor's performance comes across as that of a typical pre-teen: snarky and a bit of rascal, making comments about Aunt Marion to Mark, casually asking the family chauffer for a cigarette, responding, "You don't ask, you never know," when he's turned down, and telling Mark that all sergeants are the same, going as far as to give Sgt. Neff the nickname, "Neffer-Mind." Speaking of which, he also doesn't show his superior officer as much respect as he could, referring to him as, "Sergeant," rather than, "Sir," something I'm surprised he didn't get called out for. Still, he seems like a normal kid for the most part, save for instances where he experiences extreme mental powers and capabilities that he can't explain, like when he causes a bullying classmate named Teddy to suddenly freak out and collapse to the floor, swiping at the air like he's being attacked, just by looking at him and when he's able to correctly answer every question his teacher (Robert E. Ingham) throws at him. That leads into the most interesting thing about Damien's character: he doesn't know that he's the Antichrist until Neff points him to the Book of Revelations and he discovers the "666" on the back of his head, and when he does learn this, he panics and runs away from the Academy to a nearby lakeshore. He then solemnly yells, "Why?! Why me?!" That was a reaction I did not expect when I first saw the movie, especially since, at the end of the first one, Damien seemed to know who he was, and I was interested in seeing how it played out and how he would come to accept his evil destiny. Unfortunately, there's really nothing to it. After that scene, Damien, other than instances of seeming very thoughtful on the matter, appears quite comfortable with it, coldly watching Pasarian and his assistant suffocate from toxic fumes during the "accident" at the plant and proudly acknowledging his heritage to Mark after he learns the truth himself, proclaiming, "Born in the image of the greatest power in the world, the Desolate One. Desolate because his greatness was taken from him and he was cast down. But he has risen, Mark, in me!" Significantly, while he was angered when Teddy made an insulting comment about his "father" earlier, he now no longer thinks of Robert and Kathy as having been his parents, telling Mark when he accuses him of killing his mother that Kathy wasn't his mother. It would have been nice to see just how and when he became seduced by his own power but, sadly, we don't see that. However, Damien hasn't completely lost his human emotions yet, as he tells Mark that he thinks of him as his brother and asks him to join him on his rise to power. Like Ann's reluctance to kill Richard and her reaction to Mark's death, it feels like Damien means what he says and doesn't want to lose the most important person in his life, especially when he's forced to use his power to kill Mark when he refuses to join him and lets out a mournful yell and cries for Mark. However, it seems like this completely wiped any trace of feeling from Damien because, from then on, he comes across as cold and unabashedly evil, going as far as to kill Ann by burning her alive in an explosion and then heading out to fulfill his destiny, which leads into his characterization in the third film.

In this film, you learn just how far-reaching the cult of Satanists that Mrs. Baylock and Father Spiletto were part of is, as a couple of more influential people are revealed to be part of it. One of the managers at Thorn Industries, Paul Buher (Robert Foxworth), comes up with an idea to expand the company into the agricultural business, with a very unorthodox plan of buying up land and controlling the food people eat, something that, along with his brash and seemingly uncaring manner, puts him at odds with the company's senior manager, Bill Atherton, who feels that his project is immoral. At first, Buher seems like a decent enough guy when he agrees to shelve the idea for the sake of the company, even offering to resign, and appears to make up with Atherton, but when the latter falls through ice on a frozen lake during a hockey game and drowns, Buher just coldly watches without doing anything to help and doesn't hesitate to take up his position. He also initiates the land-purchasing plan behind Richard's back when he's away on vacation and it's also suggested that he has people out there murdering those who refuse to sell, something he feigns innocence about. Most significantly, Buher tries to subtly prepare Damien for what lies ahead, telling him that one day Thorn Industries will be his and that, as he approaches his thirteenth birthday, the time is coming for him to put aside childish things as he'll be on the road towards adulthood. All of this will have come to pass by the time of the third film, where Damien is in charge of Thorn, is on his way to taking over the world, and is managing the ongoing land operation that Buher started. Another high-ranking, significant Satanist is Lance Henriksen as Sgt. Neff, Damien's commanding officer. Although stern towards him at first like everyone else, Neff takes Damien under his wing, telling him to come to him whenever there's a problem, advising him not to draw attention to himself until the time is right, and, most importantly of all, tells Damien to read the Book of Revelations, which leads to Damien discovering who he really is. It's always nice to see Henriksen in a movie but it's a shame that he doesn't have more to do because, once Damien learns of his true nature, Neff does little more than stand in the background and watch over him, with him and Buher exchanging knowing glances from time to time. One thing I wish they would have gone into about him is how he and Damien have something in common in that they're both orphans, which may not only make him feel like they're kindred spirits but also could be a clue as to why he became part of this cult. But, that's not the kind of movie this is. Finally, even the Thorn family chauffer, Murray (Fritz Ford), seems to be part of it given how he's waiting outside of the Thorn museum to drive Damien away after he's killed Ann at the end of the movie, as well as the look on his face earlier when Richard asked him to bring Damien to the museum while he and Ann go there by taxi. Given that Ann was part of it, though, it's not that surprising.

Aunt Marion (Sylvia Sidney) is a character who, when you first see the movie, comes across as rather shrewish and unlikable, making it clear from the get-go that she has no love for Damien and goes as far as to threaten to cut Richard out of her will and the 25% of Thorn Industries that she owns unless he takes Damien and Mark out of the Academy and sends them to separate schools. She's also quite cruel to Ann, taking it upon herself to tactlessly remind her that neither of the boys are really her son, and brings up Robert's attempted murder of Damien in the first film in a rather crazy way that really upsets Ann and Richard. But, despite how unlikable she can be (she's needlessly snippy towards Charles Warren during this dinner scene), her suggestion that they separate Damien and Mark, of course, eventually proves to have been advice that they should have taken, and while it's never made clear if she knows that Damien is the Antichrist, she does know that there's something bad him and feels that there must have been something else behind his father trying to stab him to death other than the widely-accepted notion that he was deranged, which is why she's trying to protect Mark for him. And given the revelation about Ann at the end of the movie, it's easier to forgive the remarks she made towards her during the dinner scene. But, like everybody else who threatens either Damien or his future in any way, the devil makes sure that Aunt Marion isn't around long enough to cause any more trouble.

One guy in the movie who I find myself having a lot of pity for is Charles Warren (Nicholas Pryor), Richard's friend and the curator of the Thorn Museum in Chicago. At first little more than a side character, his first step towards becoming involved with Damien occurs when a journalist friend of his, Joan Hart, uncovers Damien's true identity and is killed as a result. Later on in the film, Warren receives the daggers from Megiddo and the letter that Bugenhagen intended to send Richard and Ann years before when they're discovered and sent to the museum along with some other artifacts. After reading the letter, he believes that there might be something to Bugenhagen's claims given the strange circumstances surrounding Robert's death, the revelation in the letter that it was Bugenhagen who gave Robert those very same daggers to kill Damien with, the number of gruesome and unexplained deaths that have been happening lately, and the fact that he once knew Bugenhagen, whom he believes was a rational man. Although he's unable to convince Richard to at least come with him to New York to see Yigael's Wall, Warren goes there himself to find out the truth and when he sees Damien's face on the wall, he becomes terrified out of his mind, holding himself up in a church and refusing to talk to anyone. This prompts the reverend to send for Richard, who arrives to meet up with Warren and have him take him to Yigael's Wall. This is where I feel bad for the guy because you see how he's been reduced to a shaking, paranoid, half-crazed, frightened mess, always holding onto a crucifix and raving. He's so freaked out that he can't go into the cargo carrier holding the wall with Richard, sounding absolutely pitiful when he explains this to Richard, and stays outside, which turns out to be his downfall as he ends up getting crushed between two train cars.

Joan Hart (Elizabeth Shephard), Warren's journalist friend who covered the unearthing of Yigael's Wall and the Whore of Babylon, comes very close to exposing Damien as the Antichrist to the world as she's been investigating the story surrounding him and Robert Thorn for the past seven years, with an incentive for her being that she knew Keith Jennings. She admits that she didn't use to believe in the Bible but, having now explored every possible angle on the case and seen Yigael's Wall, she's come to being as close to a believer as one can get, but when she tries to tell Richard, who doesn't like journalists anyway, about it, she angers him and he has her removed from his car as she pleads with him to listen to her (she's reminiscent of Father Brennan in that instance). Upon realizing that she's never seen Damien himself, she drives to the Academy and when she does see his face, she drives off in abject terror as she now knows for certain that he is the Antichrist. This is probably why she dies the most disturbing and horrific death in the entire film, as we'll get into later.

You don't even have to threaten Damien directly in order to fall on Satan's hit list, as is demonstrated by Bill Atherton (Lew Ayres) and Pasarian (Allan Arbus), who both unknowingly threaten the effectiveness of Damien's prophesized reign. Atherton, Thorn Industries' senior manager, serves as a steadfast voice of opposition towards Paul Buher's proposed agricultural project, which he feels is not only unorthodox but is also immoral, seeing it as a way of making slaves out of people by controlling the food they eat. Richard eventually sides with Atherton, the project is shelved, and Atherton appears to make up with Buher, whom he previously made it clear to Richard that he didn't care for personally. However, while everyone is playing hockey the day after Mark's birthday, Atherton falls through the ice on the frozen lake and eventually drowns, allowing Buher to take his place and implement the agriculture plan, which will important for Damien's reign later on. Pasarian, however, is at first on Buher's side, agreeing with him about the project and heading out to India put it into action following Atherton's death. But, when he learns that some of the land they acquired was from people who were murdered after they refused to sell, Pasarian intends to tell Richard about it, which is soon followed by a unit malfunctioning and exploding at the company's industrial plant, causing both Pasarian and an assistant of his to die from the toxic fumes.

As I said earlier, Damien's cousin, Mark (Lucas Donat), is the one person who discovers the truth that Damien is willing to spare because he does have genuine affection for him, seeing him as more of a brother than a cousin. It's clear from the beginning that the two of them are quite close and really enjoy each other's company, talking about how much Aunt Marion gets on their nerves, Damien jokingly telling Mark what to expect from their commanding officer, the barbs they exchange with each other, and how they're both willing to defend their family's honor when Teddy insults it, with Mark actually punching the guy in the face. Mark himself does seem to love Damien like a brother the way Damien views him, although he never comes out and says it, and is clearly concerned when, after discovering the "666" on the back of his head, he bolts out of the Academy in a panic in front of everyone, later asking him where he went. While he does find it strange how Damien seemed to cause Teddy to have a panic attack by merely looking at him, he doesn't think any more about it until he overhears Charles Warren talking to Richard about Bugenhagen's claim that Damien is the Antichrist. Reading the Bible himself apparently convinces Mark that it is the truth and, the next day, he runs out of the house to get away from Damien, only to be confronted by him in the snow-covered woods. Mark, clearly frightened of him now, tells Damien that he knows the truth, which Damien eventually admits to, and all of Mark's previous love for his cousin vanishes, as he becomes especially distraught when Damien refers to him as his brother, yelling, "The Beast has no brother! Don't call me your brother!" And he staunchly refuses Damien's offer to join him on his road to power, attempting to walk away from him, forcing Damien to use his power to kill him.

In his role of Bugenhagen, Leo McKern has the distinction of being the only cast member from the original Omen to appear in any of the sequels. Once again, his role is very brief (and uncredited again, for some reason) and, this time, is only at the beginning of the film when he arrives to tell his friend, Michael (Ian Hendry), about what's happened in the past week. His appearance here is the complete opposite of his composed, authoritative presence in the first movie, as he's now panicked and raving, knowing for certain that Damien is the Antichrist after having seen his face on Yigael's Wall and tries to convince Michael that it's the truth. He also tries to convince him to take the daggers from Megiddo and his letter to Damien's aunt and uncle in Chicago, insisting that they must be warned and that he himself is physically unable to do so because of his age and poor health. He also adds that Michael's reputation and good standing will help to convince them, but Michael, predictably, refuses to do so, forcing Bugenhagen to take him to Yigael's Wall to convince him. Once he sees it, Michael is convinced, but Satan ensures that neither of them will live long enough to tell anyone, as the underground temple collapses and they're both buried alive.

One of the things that made The Omen such an effective horror film was its amazing atmosphere, which gave you the feeling, even when nothing scary or creepy was going on, that evil was everywhere and Satan was the main force in charge rather than God; Damien: Omen II has none of that in the least. There is not a single scene or shot in this film that I found to be creepy or foreboding, which is a massive blow as it makes it feel more like an average horror film. Not only is it because Jerry Goldsmith's score here isn't anywhere close to being as creepy and bone-chilling as what he did for the first one but also because nothing is filmed in a way that makes you wary. The film looks good and the production values are high (the budget was twice that of the first one) but none of the scenes have that creepy vibe to them that the original did. Most of the scenes take place during nice, sunny days or in the midst of beautiful snow and while that's nice to look at, it hardly inspires terror. There are some scenes that take place either when it's very foggy, as in the scene where Joan Hart sees Damien's face and realizes he is the Antichrist, or on cloudy, overcast days, like the disastrous hockey game on the frozen lake, but they're not foreboding or menacing in any way (take that top image as a prime example). And even the shots of the inside of the tunnel leading to the chamber containing Yigael's Wall and the Whore of Babylon statue (which were filmed by Mike Hodges before he was replaced) and the shots of Damien's face on the wall aren't as creepy as they should be. Don Taylor did manage to do some interesting things with the camera, like some nice angles in the elevator shaft during the sequence leading up to Dr. Kane's death and during the sequence at the frozen lake (the shots underwater, beneath the ice, are especially well-done), but, again, they hardly inspire fear. In fact, when you first see Damien, the camera moves into a position where he's framed behind a fire where somebody's burning leaves but when I look at it, all I can think is, "Subtle."

The only thing in this movie that does kind of make me go, "Uh-oh," is the evil raven that constantly pops either as a warning of impending evil or to enact it himself. He's definitely one of the most memorable parts of the movie (he's the first thing that comes to mind whenever I think of it), something the producers and studio heads must have realized since they put a satanic drawing of him on the poster, and for good reason. Every time he pops up, it's a sign that evil is now on the scene and something bad is about to happen. Now only does he look and act quite menacing, especially when you get a good look at him (the live birds used in these scenes were trained by Ray Berwick, who had most notably done the same for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds) but you learn very quickly that he's more than just an omen, as he causes Aunt Marion to have a heart attack and is the main cause of Joan Hart's gruesome and disturbing death. He's never seen again after that scene, though, which is a shame and I think they should have kept him around a little bit longer since, like I said, he's about the only thing in this movie that's kind of scary.

Another thing The Omen had going for it that this sequel lacks was the loving relationship between Robert and Kathy Thorn, the happiness that have a son all their own initially brought them, and the tragedy that occurred as the family was torn apart as Robert lost his beloved wife and learned that his adopted son was the spawn of Satan. While we have another couple functioning as this film's ostensible leads, what happens to them is not affecting at all because we never get to really know them or see their relationship. Like I said earlier, William Holden and Lee Grant have very little do in their roles and most of their scenes together consist of talking or arguing about what's going on, what's up with Damien, etc., and we don't see many intimate scenes between them that shows what a loving and close couple they are, save for some small moments here and there and a short, family movie night scene. As a result, seeing them lose their friends and their own son, as well as the revelation that Ann was a Satanist all along (think about how powerful that would have been had Richard and her been characterized as having the same kind of close relationship that Robert and Kathy did), doesn't have the impact that it should have. Another thing that I think could have been done that would have been interesting is show more of what goes on while Damien's at the Academy. If you think about it, this is the first time we've seen Damien interact with people outside of his family and would it have been interesting to see more of him having to deal with that, the people around him learning that he's someone who's not to be screwed with, and how it ties into his personal discovery of his true identity. We get a couple of scenes, like when he somehow freaks Teddy out and easily answers every answer that teacher throws at him, making him look like a fool in front of the class, but it would have been nice to see more of that and how, after he learns who he really is, Damien has to try harder not to use his power on those who displease and draw unwanted attention on himself, with Sgt. Neff possibly having to reel him in a couple of more times and be like, "Easy. Your time will come. I promise." I think that would have been a more interesting and engaging story than all of the scenes we get with dialogue concerning stuff that's going on with Thorn Industries, which I honestly find to be boring for the most part.

The death scenes in the original Omen, although quite graphic and elaborate, were fairly bloodless in their execution, whereas the death scenes in Damien: Omen II, which are more numerous, swing back and forth from being completely bloodless to quite gory in comparison to the first one (albeit still tame by today's standards). For instance, there's no blood whatsoever in the first couple of deaths. First, Bugenhagen and Michael become trapped in the tunnel leading to the chamber containing Yigael's Wall, enclosed in a small space when the roof ahead of them and behind them suddenly collapses. The underground temple above them begins to collapse as well and dirt and sand pour down into the tunnel as they both try to escape. Michael is apparently knocked unconscious by some falling stones, leaving Bugenhagen to face the end alone. Knowing that there's no hope for them, he waits to die but shouts a defiant speech that goodness will prevail eventually when the Second Coming occurs. The second death, that of Aunt Marion, is both bloodless and much simpler: after that ill-fated dinner when she makes her opinion of Damien known, she wakes up in the middle of the night to find the evil raven sitting at the opposite end of her bed and, as he stares at her, he seems to cause her to have a heart attack as she tries to get up and collapses to the floor. However, the death that follows is not only one of the film's goriest and most disturbing scenes, I'd say it's one of the most disturbing scenes in the entire series. Joan Hart, after seeing Damien's face and realizing that he is the Antichrist, drives off in a panic, only for her car to suddenly stall on a country road. Realizing that it's not going to go any further, Hart gets out of her car and attempts to walk to a nearby farm, when that raven shows up sitting on top of her car. She tries to run but the raven chases her down and lands on top of her head, brutally attacking her by pecking at her eyes, while she screams bloody murder and tries to get away. She manages to get him off briefly but he flies right back on, pulls at her with his talons, and causes her to tumble into a nearby ditch as she struggles with him, continuing to scream for help. Once he's pecked her eyes out, the raven flies to a nearby tree branch and watches as she stumbles into the road, right into the path of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler, which slams into her and bounces her off the grill and into the front of its container, which she slides down back onto the road, getting trampled by one of the truck's wheels afterward.

The next death is the bloodless demise of Bill Atherton, who, during a hockey game on the frozen lake where Mark's birthday is being celebrated, skates over to catch the puck and is unable to stop himself from crashing through the thin patch of ice there. The others try to help pull him out but the current carries him underneath the ice and they chase after him across the lake, following him across the ice as he futilely pounds at its underside. Charles Warren tries to chop through the ice with an axe but they then see Atherton surface through a nearby hole, trying to pull himself out by using a small tree that had come up to the surface at that spot as well. Again, they try to run over and save him but he gets pulled under the ice yet again and as everyone else spreads out to try to find, the scene ends as Richard drops to his knees in hopeless defeat. Another Thorn Industries man, Pasarian, gets his next in a death that's the first of several in this film that more than likely inspired the Final Destination movies later on. He and an assistant are checking over a unit in the plant that's been acting up lately when it suddenly explodes in the assistant's face, knocking him off the step-ladder he was standing on. Damien's class from the Academy, who are being given a tour of the plant, are led back the way they came as Pasarian tells those in the control room to shut the unit down. But, no matter what they do, it won't shut off, and the place fills up with toxic fumes as the students run for it, while Pasarian checks over his assistant. Realizing there's nothing he can do (the guy has lost all color in his skin and there's saliva running out the corner of his mouth), Pasarian tries to escape up to the walkway leading to the exit but he's overcome by the fumes and, gasping for air, falls backwards back down to the floor, while Damien coldly leaves him to die. Later on at the hospital, Dr. Kane (Meshach Taylor) runs some tests on a sample of Damien's blood and sees that it matches that of a jackal. Baffled, he decides to take it down so another person can look at it but, when he gets in the elevator, it goes up instead of down and doesn't respond when he presses the floor button. It keeps going until it reaches the top of the shaft, where it seemingly stalls, and then plummets back down very fast, not responding when Kane presses the emergency stop button. It slams to a halt just a few floors shy of the bottom, snapping the cable holding it loose and knocking Kane to the floor. When the unraveling cable reaches the top of the shaft, it sends a horizontal cable screeching back down, slicing right through the elevator and shearing Kane clean in half at the waist.

Mark's death is another bloodless affair: after he refuses to join him, Damien uses his power to cause an aneurysm in his brain, resulting in him grabbing the sides of his neck while gurgling and screaming in agony before, literally, dropping dead. Charles Warren's death is more elaborate and cringe-inducing, although you don't see much of the aftermath. When Richard meets up with him in New York, Warren takes him to the train yard where Yigael's Wall is being held in a cargo carrier so he can see for himself that Damien's face on it. Too scared to go back in himself, Warren gives Richard the key so he can go around to the back of the car and open the door, while he stays outside. As Richard climbs inside and digs around to find the wall, the brake on another train car farther up the track from the cargo carrier slowly comes loose, sending it down the track towards it. Once Richard sees Damien's face, he turns to see the car coming towards him right before it slams into the carrier, lunging it forward and causing Warren to become snagged in the locking mechanism. Warren screams in terror as he's driven right at another car down the tracks, unable to do anything to save himself, and is crushed between the two cars, with the only glimpses of the aftermath being Warren's limp, dangling legs and a back shot of him hanging from the lock. The last two deaths, and the ending as a whole, are pretty lackluster, especially when compared to the awesome climax of the first film. All that happens is Richard and Ann head to the Thorn Museum while Murray brings Damien there himself, Richard tries to convince Ann that Damien is the Antichrist, Ann tries to stop him from finding the daggers of Megiddo in Warren's office, and when she's unable to dissuade him, she takes them out of a drawer, swings around, and stabs him in the gut with them, revealing herself to have been a Satanist all along. Richard then collapses and Ann yells for Damien, who, having overheard everything, causes the adjoining boiler room to explode, burning Ann alive along with Richard's body and the daggers.

When producer Harvey Bernhard got the greenlight from the studio to make the movie, the person he made sure to hire before anyone else was Jerry Goldsmith, partly because of how in demand he was at the time and also because he felt that, without his music, the movie would suffer. But, while getting Goldsmith back was a good idea, the film, in my opinion, still suffered anyway because his score here isn't close to the same level as his creepy as hell music for the first movie. Never wanting to repeat himself, Goldsmith decided to go in a different direction in scoring the sequel, reusing several themes from his first score only a few times (you hear a very condensed version of the main Ave Satani theme at the very end before the credits begin), which is respectable, but the new music, which uses a lot of electronic sounds, isn't creepy in the slightest. In that way, it fits with the movie, but that's not a good thing in this instance. For example, the main title, which, like the Ave Satani before, you hear during both the opening and ending credits, is loud, fast, and overbearing, and while it utilizes people singing in Latin again, they don't give you the creeps like they did in Ave Satani and it's accompanied by a weird, electronic rhythm that someone once described as sounding like a bunch of croaking frogs, which isn't far off, believe it or not. The loud and overbearing nature of those Latin singers here is constant throughout the film, often swallowing scenes that would have been better had they been scored in a more subtle manner, and even when the music tries to go that route, like in the build-up to Dr. Kane's death, it doesn't work as well as it should. Plus, again and again, you hear this sudden, odd vocal effect that, in this case, really does sound like a croak. It was an interesting, experimental score for Goldsmith but, again, it's not scary or creepy, does not have the same power as the music that won him his Oscar, and sometimes sounds like it belongs in a different movie.

At the end of the day, Damien: Omen II is not a terrible movie but, at the same time, it's no classic either. It does have some things to recommend it, like high production values, a noteworthy cast, a nice attempt to make Damien more of a character, and some well-constructed and elaborate death scenes and sequences, but, at the same time, the story doesn't live up to its potential, with some sections that just aren't interesting, a number of the great actors they got, especially William Holden and Lee Grant, don't have much to do in their roles and, as a result, what happens to their characters isn't as effective as it should be, and, most significantly, it doesn't have the creepy and foreboding atmosphere of the film that spawned it, mostly due to the way it's filmed and the score not being anywhere near as effective. I do know that this movie has its fans, some of whom like it more than the original because they find the death scenes more entertaining, and while that's fine, for me it's not a patch on the first one and is just an average horror sequel that was only made as a cash-in to a really successful movie.