10/03/17 – day three of thirty-one days of horror!
Though Don Taylor (and the uncredited Mike Hodges)’s Damien:
Omen II isn’t quite the classy affair that was Richard Donner’s original, it’s
still a decent sequel with enough great shock moments to make it a strong entry
in the evil kid genre. The 1978 film finds devil boy Damien Thorn now a
teenager, biding his time at a military academy, under the care of adoptive
relatives William Holden and Lee Grant. Fans of the Final Destination franchise
will recognize a formula here; the plot is essentially a series of gruesome,
Rube Goldbergian deaths that befall those who seek to stand in the way of
Damien’s gradually realized ascension to anti-christdom. Several of the deaths
are highly memorable – there’s a trapped under ice sequence that assured I
would never play hockey and an elevator bisection that almost rivals the head-spinning
decapitation of the first film. Best of all, Damien: Omen II boasts horror’s
greatest secret weapon, Lance Henriksen, playing a sergeant in Satan’s army who
endeavors to keep young jackal spawn on the fire n’ brimstone path. This
Halloween you’ve got a date with Damien!
