Damien: Omen II

Plot synopsis:
A week after the burial of Robert and Katherine Thorn, archaeologist Carl Bugenhagen (Leo McKern) learns of the survival of their adopted son Damien. Confiding to his friend Michael Morgan (Ian Hendry) that Damien is the Antichrist, Bugenhagen attempts to convince him to give Damien's guardian a box containing the means to kill Damien. As Morgan is unconvinced, Bugenhagen takes him to some local ruins to see the mural of Yigael's Wall, which was said to have been drawn by one who saw the Devil and had visions of the Antichrist as he would appear from birth to death. Though Morgan believes him upon seeing an ancient depiction of the Antichrist with Damien's face, both he and Bugenhagen are buried alive as the tunnel collapses on them.
Seven years later, the 12-year old Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) is living with his uncle, industrialist Richard Thorn (William Holden) and his wife, Ann (Lee Grant). Damien gets along well with his cousin Mark (Lucas Donat), Richard's son from his first marriage, with whom he is enrolled in a military academy. However, Damien is despised by Richard's aunt, Marion (Sylvia Sidney), who sees him as a bad influence on Mark. Though Marion threatens to cut Richard out of her will if he does not separate the two boys, she dies of a heart attack while visited by a raven in the dead of night. Soon after, through his friend and curator of the Thorn Museum, Dr. Charles Warren (Nicholas Pryor), Richard is introduced to journalist Joan Hart (Elizabeth Shephard). Hart was a colleague of Keith Jennings, the journalist decapitated seven years previously after befriending Robert Thorn to investigate the circumstances surrounding Damien's birth and adoption by the Thorns. Hart has pieced together the circumstances of Jennings' death after seeing Yigael's Wall. Though no one believes her, Joan believes she may have been mistaken about Damien until she sees his face at his school and drives off in a panic. On the road, after her car's engine mysteriously dies, Joan is attacked by the raven as it pecks out her eyes and then watches her get run over by a passing truck.
At Thorn Industries, manager Paul Buher (Robert Foxworth) suggests expanding the company's operations into agriculture; however, the project is shelved by senior manager Bill Atherton (Lew Ayres), who calls Buher's intention of buying up land in the process immoral. At Mark's birthday, Buher introduces himself to Damien, invites him to see the plant, and also speaks of his approaching initiation. Buher seemingly makes up with Atherton, who drowns after falling through the ice at a hockey game on a frozen lake the following day. A shocked Richard leaves on vacation, leaving Buher to oversee the agriculture project in principle and returning to find that he initiated land purchases on his own.
Meanwhile, at the academy, Damien's new commander, Sgt. Neff (Lance Henriksen), is revealed to be a secret Satanist like Buher as he takes the boy under his wing while advising him not to draw any attention to himself until the right moment. He also points him to the Biblical Revelation, chapter 13, telling Damien that, for him, the book is precisely that; a revelation. Damien reads the passage, discovering the 666 Mark of the Beast on his scalp. Learning his true nature he flees the Academy grounds in a terrified panic. Later, alerting Buher that he intends to tell Richard that some of the land they obtained was taken from people who were murdered after having refused to sell their land, Dr. David Pasarian (Allan Arbus) is killed when he and his assistant suffocate from toxic fumes during an industrial 'accident'. The incident injures Damien's class, who were visiting the plant at the time. When Damien alone is found to be unharmed by the fumes, a doctor (Meshach Taylor) suggests keeping him in the hospital as a precaution. The doctor discovers that Damien's marrow cells resemble that of a jackal; before he can investigate any further or report his findings, however, he is bifurcated by a falling elevator cable.
Meanwhile, Bugenhagen's box has been found during an excavation of the ruins and delivered to the Thorn Museum. Dr. Warren opens it and finds the Seven Daggers of Megiddo, the only weapons able to kill Damien, along with a letter by Bugenhagen explaining that Damien is the Antichrist. Warren rushes to inform Richard, who angrily refuses to believe it as Warren leaves to see Yigael's Wall for himself. The next day, Richard confronts Ann with the letter, but she convinces him that it is preposterous. But matters worsen when Mark, who overheard Richard's altercation with Warren, confronts Damien. Reluctantly, and then proudly, admitting to being the Devil's son, Damien pleads with Mark to join him on his rise to power. But Mark's steadfast refusal forces Damien to kill Mark by causing an aneurysm in his cousin's brain. Shaken by his son's death, Richard goes to New York City to see a half-crazed Warren before being taken to the train station where Yigael's Wall is being stored in a cargo carrier. As a horrified Richard sees Damien's image, a switching locomotive impales Charles and crushes him against the carriage, destroying the wall and convincing Richard beyond doubt that Damien is the Antichrist. Upon his return, Richard has Damien picked up from his graduation at the academy while taking Ann to the museum. When they find the daggers in Warren's office in the Thorn Museum, Ann uses them to kill Richard, revealing herself to be a Satanist who "always belonged to him". Having heard the altercation from an outside corridor, Damien wills a nearby boiler room to explode, setting fire to the building, with Ann consumed in the flames. Damien then exits the burning museum and is picked up by the family driver, Murray, as the fire department arrives.

Tags: good versus evil, violence, gothic, murder

Review:
Although not as creepy as the first film, DAMIEN: OMEN II has its moments, and is worth seeing for anyone who likes to have a fun time with all this biblical stuff..
It doesn't make him any more mysterious, it just feels incomplete.A good portion of the movie is spent with nothing much going on except for a few people dying around Damien while he just keeps on living a completely normal life unaware of who he his.
I am curious and frankly, a bit creeped out that the new Omen is being released on 06-06-2006, "666", get it?The story itself is pretty good actually, now that Damien has been under the care of his aunt and uncle, strange things are happening again.
This film was released in 1978 2 years after the first and it tells the story of Damien the Anti-Christ who is now age 12 he is starting to understand his duty in the line of Satan whilst a strange crow eliminates any people who know his real identity and are seen enemies in the eyes of Satan.
On the contrary, "Damien: The Omen II" is a rather solid companion piece to the Richard Donner original, with death scenes that are every bit as ground-breaking for their time and still shocking today (all about the crow pecking out the eyeballs) and a great cast that includes William Holden, Lee Grant and Elizabeth Shepard.
The original Omen left itself wide open for a sequel, and even though I personally don't think it particularly needed one; I have to say that this second part, to my surprise, is actually very good!
Don Taylor's sequel, of course, has nothing on Richard Donner's original; and even though the film often gets too convoluted and is more than a little bit silly, The Omen II follows on from the original nicely and is an overall worthy sequel.
Logically, the film picks up the story of Damien seven years after his father, Robert Thawn, tried to kill him under mysterious circumstances.
The film starts off with the revelation that Damien Thawn is the antichrist, and from there we follow him as he joins military school, comes under the guidance of one of Satan's disciples and violently disposes of anyone who stands a chance of discovering his real identity!
The film ends with a nice little twist, before once again leaving the series open for a sequel - which, of course, it got three years later.
The movie is a worthy sequel to "The Omen" and I warmly recommend it, but while "The Omen", after just one viewing, remains stuck in the soul and mind forever, "Damien" will entertain you well, but I doubt that it will leave a deeper impression on anyone.8/10.
This sequel to huge successful Richard Donner film centres on the rebirth of the anti-Christ personified in Damien(Jonathan Scott Taylor).
Chicago, seven years later, now the grown-up demon-child with the mark 666 and adopted by fostered parents, the magnate Thorn(William Holden, Lee Grant).He finds along with his brother in a military academy with a tutor-officer(Lance Henriksen).
Damien seem to dispatch new weird killing every few minutes of film.Sensationalistic terror pieces when happen murders, like the crow, ice lagoon(the best), train and elevator with gore and decapitations included.For those who like that kind of things to be amused.
Cool cinematography by Bill Butler(Jaws) and again impressive musical score by Jerry Goldsmith(Planet of apes) with soundtrack-alike the first part , winner a deserved Academy Award.Although redundant to original movie is a fitting rendition by director Don Taylor(previously a famed actor) who took over the film-making when Michael Hodges (screenplay's author, alongside Stanley Mann) left.
Years later, Seltzer commented that had he written the story for the second Omen, he would have set it the day after the first movie, with Damien a child living in The White House.
Years later, Seltzer commented that had he written the story for the second Omen, he would have set it the day after the first movie, with Damien a child living in The White House.
In recent interviews, Hodges has commented sanguinely on his experiences working on Omen II.Academy Award-winning veteran actor William Holden was the original choice to star as Robert Thorn in the first Omen, but turned it down as he did not want to star in a picture about the devil.
Lee Grant, another Oscar-winner, was a fan of the first Omen and accepted enthusiastically the role of female protagonist-later-turncoat Ann Thorn.Ray Berwick (1914–1990) trained and handled the crows used for several scenes in the film.
Blockbuster sequel to the 1976 smash horror hit has the anti-Christ now 13 and living with wealthy relatives beginning to understand his ungodly mission while plotting to take control of his uncles billion dollar business empire with the help of satanic minions, meanwhile anyone attempting to unravel the secrets of his sinister past meets with a chilling freak accidental death.
Has a first rate cast headed by Oscar winners William Holden and Lee Grant and they are perfect , but newcomer Jonathan Scott Taylor gives a superb performance as Damien that you think he was born to play this role.The real stars however are the spectacular death sequences which hold up to this day.Production values are solid and Jerry Goldsmith who won an Oscar for the original delivers an even more powerful and spine tingling score.
"Ave Santini" I didn't realize until recently, is translated: "Hail Satan." This is very disturbing to me as a Christian but still consider it one of the best soundtracks of all time.The production for Omen II was so well done and actually scary compared to the cheap budget movies you see today.
Damien: Omen II, perhaps unsurprisingly, doesn't have the originality of that first film but it maintains the story very well in my opinion.
Because the film is neither a beginning, nor an end to the story it allows this instalment to simply focus its attention on the macabre material in between and it's really not a bad thing.There are other interesting changes though, such as the use of the raven as the creature of the devil, I thought it was a better choice than the Rottweiler from the first movie and it was very well integrated into the story.
The acting too is more than decent with the likes of William Holden basically taking on the role Gregory Peck filled in the first movie, while Jonathan Scott-Taylor looks right as Damien, his thin features can look cold and ominous but he is never cartoonishly evil, which was a good thing.
The Omen II is the story of Damien Thorn 7 years after his father died trying to kill him..
And we cannot overlook the glorious music of Jerry Goldsmith.This was supposed to be developed with producer Harvey Bernhard's best friend Richard Donner, but he ended up getting "Superman" around this time Some of the beauty of the film is that the beginning was shot in an actual castle from the Crusades with an actual escape tunnel.
As much as I enjoyed the original Omen I saw Damien when I was basically the same age as the main character and loved the film.
While not as unrelentingly frightening as its blockbuster predecessor, this more-than-competent sequel to The Omen raises some interesting questions about the nature of free will (can the Antichrist deny his birthright?) before falling into a gory series of increasingly outlandish deaths, the best of which is a terrifyingly protracted scene beneath the ice of a frozen lake.
Was very talked-about at the time of release and the movie has stood the test of time among all the people I know.The low score could be attributed to viewers not watching as many are still freaked out by how convincing the actor that plays Damien is and the ingenuity of the deaths of the Antichrist's enemies.
Jerry Goldsmith does another fine soundtrack, albeit not with the two Oscar nominations and one win this time around, while William Holden and Lee Grant do a credible job of replacing stars Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, whom Damien had no qualms dispensing with in the first film.
It's a race against time to find if he could succeed where his brother failed.With a lot of great scenery, brightness, good acting, I actually like their voices for the era they're filming in (late 1970s) and the story as well as the music which was a strong feature of the first.
Some disregard it entirely and move straight on to 'The Final Conflict'; others adore it, sometimes even more so than Richard Donner's original film.I love it on a par with Donner's film, but I admit that, whilst he was away trying to make audiences believe that a man could fly, his presence was sorely missed.Overall, the film is a great horror sequel and an entertaining one at that.It takes the view that Damien Thorn is the Antichrist and charts his rise to power as he establishes himself further within the Thorn family, hoping to inherit a global conglomerate controlled by his adoptive uncle, Richard (William Holden).
Not all the Thorns could have been that insane or deluded!!There's a great cast here, with Holden embarking on his only horror film and leaving behind a memorable performance for posterity, whilst he is joined by the incredible Lee Grant as his wife, Ann. I saw Grant for the first time in this movie and only later discovered her performances in 'Columbo: Ransom for a Dead Man' (1971) and 'Airport '77' (1977).
It's just a shame that the planned 1979 second sequel to 'The Omen' starring Scott-Taylor didn't go ahead, as there is too much empty time in Damien's life between this and the next film!Although it was implied in the first film that he was possibly aware of his demonic lineage and that he may be adopted by the President of the United States, these are not really big things that leave you wondering "what happened here, then?" Even though William Holden/Richard Thorn wasn't in the original, who cares?
It's like Marmite -- you either love it or you don't!Naturally, to compete with 'The Omen' and David Warner's classic end in that film, there is a whole spate of memorable death sequences here that are fun and, sometimes, quite chilling as well...
Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) is 12 years old is now living with his uncle Richard Thorn (William Holden), his wife (Lee Grant) and their son (Lucas Donat).
He using his demonic powers, which he kills those people who anger him or in his way.Directed by Don Taylor (Escape from the Planet of the Apes, The Final Countdown, The Island of Dr. Moreau "1977") made an entertaining sequel to the original but less effective.
to me The Omen was one of the best movies I ever saw and although I never knew it was a remake I still thought it was a pretty frightening movie and when I found out that Damien Thorn's life is still continued I was really anxious to see what will happen to him.
Although not as great as the original, this would still be refereed to me as a classic in the genre.This sequel concerns the life of a now teenage Damien Thorn (Jonathan Scott-Taylor)seven years after the events in the first film.
Instead of being high on atmosphere and creepy-ness like the first film , Omen 2 mostly relies on being suspenseful and tries to built up a bit of tension and pulls it off nicely in some areas with a good body count and some gruesome kills .
Top that off with a little bit of a twist towards the last closing seconds of the film and an ending which speaks for it-self and you have a good film that any horror movie fan would want to check out .
Damien is now a teenager living with his aunt and uncle (Lee Grant & William Holden) however after the sudden death of close family members and other various people they begin to suspect what he truly is.
Two years after "The Omen" hit big with audiences and critics alike, little Damien Thorn returned to the big screen again, this time older and more aware of his true identity.
Jonathan Scott-Taylor plays the young Damien Thorn (yet another example of an English actor required to fill evil boots), a cheeky performance that at times asks for sympathy with the devil.
*** out of *****.This has to be one of the best Omen sequels ever.A now 13-year-old(and MAJORILY hot)Damien Thorn is living with his billionaire uncle in Chicago along with his aunt and cousin,though they do send both of the boys to a military academy.
Now,it was a good movie and all and a sequel is rarely ever good,but when Damien finds the ominous birthmark he sure accepted the truth quickly,while in reality,some people might have a hard time trying to cope.
In fact I thought it was so good that there was no way the original needed a sequel and this movie proves it .
It fails for three obvious reasons 1 ) The audience know that Damien Thorn is the anti Christ hence we're one step ahead of all the characters in the movie unlike in the original where we were shocked by the plot revelations 2) This possibly ties in with the first point .
Good actors like William Holden, Lee Grant, Sylvia Sidney, Robert Foxworth and Lance Henriksen struggle through this, but most of the movie rests on Jonathan Scott-Taylor's lead performance: he's well-cast as Damien but decidedly one-note, with a monotone voice that seems mired in indifference.
It seems that young Damien (the only son of Satan played by Jonathan Scott-Taylor) is now living with his aunt and uncle (William Holden and Lee Grant) and attending military school with Holden's son of the same age.
Damien: Omen II is good by the standards of slasher films, but it could have and should have been much more..
I think this sequel was built around William Holden, explaining Thorn Industries since he is known for playing tough gentlemen( via Network.)Despite some of its faults, this film does deliver some good chills..
Damien:  Omen II is set seven years after the first film, and the second film has more death scenes than the first film.
In fact, Bernhard didn't like many of the ideas for the picture, but did hire William Holden, an actor who had passed on the role of Robert Thorn from the first film (eventually played by Gregory Peck) and his "Stalag 13" co-star Don Taylor to direct (who ended up replacing first choice, Mike Hodges, the movie's screenwriter).
"Omen II" features Damien (a campy, not scary Johnathan Taylor) living with his rich uncle and aunt (William Holden and Lee Grant, both good) at their lush home in Chicago, IL.
The character of Damien as the Antichrist was much more scarier at the age of 5 than he is at 14 Still, as mentioned earlier, there are a couple of great death-scenes like who's getting sliced up in an elevator and a chilling bird-attack.
The truth is, "Damien: Omen II" should be on the Bottom 100, somewhere adjacent to "From Justin to Kelly." While Richard Donner's original film was superb and harrowing, this mindlessly bloody follow-up has a pre-teen Damien Thorn coming to terms with his demonic heritage (who died and made this movie "American Graffiti"?) and, bizarrely, absent for most of the movie, away at a military academy while a few people back home struggle to unravel the mystery of his identity.
But Taylor is so concerned with finishing the movie on schedule that he doesn't take time to wring good performances out of the actors, even the legends like William Holden (here an emotionally impotent hack) and Lew Ayres (whose role does not suit him in the slightest).
In simple terms, Damien: Omen II just isn't anywhere near as good as the 1976 Richard Donner original.
After a popular The Omen featured a spooky child and some memorable death scenes, including the possibly best decapitation ever filmed, a captivated audience wanted to know what kind of a teenager Damien, now an orphan, would become.
Passable sequel has the brother of the Gregory Peck character from the first instalment (played here by William Holden) taking custody of the young demon spawn (Scott-Taylor), his wife (Grant), son (Donat) and associates (Ayres, Sidney) all beginning to suspect there's more to Damien than just a reclusive, aloof teenager.
Oscar winners William Holden and Lee Grant bring class to their roles just like Peck and Remick did to the original but Jerry Golsmith delivers and even more chilling score that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and the death scenes couldn't have been better and more realistic and remember this is before cgi which if done today would probably look fake.
I thought that Damien:Omen 11 was a good sequel to the first film.
Rent all the Omen movies and get a clue...Damien is coming !.
Seven years pass, and Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor), currently living with his uncle, Richard Thorn (William Holden), is sent to a military school with cousin Mark.
It's 7 years later, and 12 year old Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) is living with his wealthy uncle Richard Thorn (William Holden) and his wife Ann (Lee Grant).
Lacking the impact or the pure ability to frighten of the original, Damien: Omen 2 is nevertheless a good depiction of the boy's teenage years as he enters a Westpoint-like military academy.Differing from the first one in that the death toll dramatically rises -- not unusual in sequels of horror films really -- this features a magnificent cameo performance from Leo McKern in the kind of role that only he and Brian Blessed can pull off.This performance easily outweighs some bad over acting, particularly that of the second wife of Damien's uncle..
The problem with Damien is it tries too much to be like the great Omen movie.