DAMIEN: OMEN II Didn’t Do Quite Enough
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 19 июн 2024
- Continuing on with The Omen franchise we're looking at the follow up to the horror classic. The sequel released in 1978 to a much less favourable reception than the original, but did it deserve to get dumped on so much? I don't think so, but it's not without issue. Let's take a closer look at it.
Keep in touch
► Instagram: @rocklingraves
Thank you for stopping by Rocklin Graves. Keep an eye out for videos every week! 
Кино
My mother almost named me Damien but it was the early 80s and the Omen movies were still fresh in people’s minds. Her friends talked her out of naming me after the Antichrist lol.
HAHA perfect!
😂😂😂
Exactly why nobody is named Damien anymore!
@@yourspookygay Don't forget Damien Echols, and look how well that turned out for him.
😂😂😂
Unpopular opinion The Omen 2 is my favorite Omen movie out of this franchise
I saw Damien Omen II first back in the early 80s ...and actually liked it better. I may be alone in that thought tho...😅
Have to disagree regards his concious awareness in terms of first movie and how it detracts from this one. Part of the charm of original as youve alluded to is the innocence of 5 year old damien. I dont think he deliberately knocks cathy over bannister nor can he possibly understand his role. Even at the end with him smiling doesnt confirm anything. Even if baylock revealed this to him theres nothing to say he would comprehend let alone remember. Part 2 picks this up. Soon as his identity is revealed to him. His powers grow and he takes over the killing from the forces of the malevolence that seems to help him.
I love the scene with Damien and the dates in class. He knows but he doesn’t quite understand fully. Such a great parallel with Jesus.
I just want to say, as someone who read a novelisation, Damien didn't understand what he was till he was 13. A whole point of this part of his story, is just a kid who had something horrible happened to him in the past, learning and comprehending what he truly is.
True. He did not know what he was in the original Omen. He was being protected by Mrs Baylock and, I suppose, dark forces
Yeah his hang-up on Damien knowing what he is at like 4 years old doesn't ring true. He didn't know. He knew he was different and being protected but that's it. That's why for me Omen II is so good because he finds out at the pivotal age of puberty, becoming a man, and his struggle is real. All the more scarier too when he accepts and starts to use that power. A great sequel for me.
Excellent review. I watched this move a grip in the early 80s on cable. I have a huge soft spot for this one. I still enjoy watching it, after many viewings. The performances are very solid throughout. The actor that played Damien did a very solid job, I thought.
It's definitely got comfort movie vibes. I got that right away
12:34 The first time I saw this as a kid, for some reason, that face on the mural terrified the crap out of me to the point that I remember having nightmares for weeks about that face.
I can definitely see that freaking me out if I saw this when I was young
I remember seeing this when I was 15 -- it was rated R (no one under 17 admitted) but my friend and I got in. I loved it. The first Omen is a classic. I found the revival to simply be a carbon copy of the first with different actors.
You're right, Mike Hodges (director of the original and truly brilliant Get Carter) didn't care for horror movies but he was attracted to the project because of the political potential - the antichrist rising to the top of one of America's biggest corporations - with the added boon of genetic engineering thrown in. Some of his work remained - the opening in Jerusalem and the Academy scenes and, in my view, they are some of the film's more deeper and interesting scenes. Another case of what might have been.
This movie has always been important to me. It's the very first R-rated film I ever saw. I was 13 years old at the time... pretty much the same age as Damien in the film, so I very much related to him. I saw it in the theater twice. I hadn't even seen the first Omen yet, though I was familiar with the story thanks to the Mad Magazine parody. I read the novelization of the film before seeing it too, so I knew what to expect as far as the story went. I really wasn't sure what the big deal about R-rated films was, because other than the elevator death (thanks for showing that so many times in your video!), there was nothing in the film that went beyond what you'd see in a PG film. There was no adult language, nudity or sex, just a lot of kills that weren't really that gory (again, except for the elevator scene).Even the scene with the reporter having her eyes ripped out by the raven before being run over by the truck wasn't that bad. It wasn't long before I saw more R-rated movies and came to realize Damien Omen II is pretty mild for an R-rated film. I just loved the story, though I did note that all the people who died were killed because they knew who Damien was and he didn't really do too much of anything else in the movie. They saved that for when he became an adult in The Final Conflict, which apart from Sam Neill I found very disappointing. So I now judge the original Omen to be great, the second one to be good, the third one to be bad, the fourth one to be atrocious, and the remake to be completely unnecessary. The prequel, The First Omen, comes out this year. We'll have to see.
I've always liked the ending as William Holden's character is brutally informed by his wife that she has been a servant of Damien's all along, not that its does her much good!
Yes the storyline of Damien in this sequel wasn't perfect but I really enjoyed the many creative death scenes! They most likely might have inspired the death scenes in the Final Destination films. Too bad the next film The Final Conflict lacked the creative death scenes the first two films had. But the one person who really made all 3 films in the original trilogy worth watching was the great Jerry Goldsmith! His superb score for this second film is my favorite of the three original films of the trilogy.
The score really is fantastic
@RocklinGraves I agree! Jerry Goldsmith really deserved that Oscar win for the first Omen film! It's so rare for a horror film's score to get an Oscar nomination let alone a win! I think Lalo Schifrin's score for The Amityville Horror (1979) is the only other horror music score to get an Oscar nomination I think. 😊
Love this movie, almost as much as the original. Jonathan Taylor Scott nailed the part as Damien. One thing I was could have been different is there was way too much of a gap from Omen 2 to Omen 3. 20 years later as Damien was 32.
What could have been done differently with Omen 3 is watching Damien grow up as a teenager going through high school and college experiencing more of his transformation of who he really is. The most important characters in Omen 2 in my opinion were Paul Bueher and Damien's military instructor Sergeant Neff, who were both Damien's protectors, along with his Aunt. They were guiding him at a very early age on how to become a man and give up the childlike lifestyle. The one thing I don't understand is why Damien killed his Aunt at the end where she was one of his servants. Probably so he could quickly take power of Thorn industries.
I can only assume after Damien's aunt and uncle were killed at the museum, Paul Bueher became his legal guardian and mentor on how to operate the Thorn business and mentor him into rising of power through all his young years. I really wish Omen 3 would have went that route from his teens up until his late 20's or even early 30's just before The Final Conflict. This would have been the perfect Omen 3. Omen 4 should have been The Final Conflict. And the original Omen 4 should have been completely erased from existence.
Why couldn't the movie have just been about Damien entirely!? Have the film be about Damien discovering who he is and him slowly accepting his role as the antichrist. It would also be a clever subversion of the first film's reputation of Damien having the legacy of being the quintessential "evil child" in horror history by having the sequel almost make you feel sorry for Damien and almost make you want to see him go against his destiny (the keyword being "almost" because he's still the devil's son after all). I can even imagine a scene where he prays to God completely out of desperation to save him or forgive him, even if praying physically hurts him.
I first saw this on late night TVaround 1987 when i was 11. My parents had gone on a holiday so i was minded by my sister. I was scared witless and the doctors death in the lift always stuck with me. I never looked at a raven without thinking of this film since. It still holds a special place in my heart since.
This was my favt of the franchise.
I just watched the full trilogy this week! I still love the first and 3rd. Omen 2 is an ok mid movie to continue the story but have a love for it since I watched this when I was 17 when it opened
Thanks for watching! I'm looking forward to seeing Omen 3
Best of the Omen movies. The first one was a bit boring despite being a classic.
You're wrong. Damien had no knowledge of his identity in the first film. That is what made it so terrifying, and the unraveling of the mystery so interesting. Absent the aspect of mystery, the sequel had nothing to do except be a "slasher" film.
Right…. Damien had no clue…. which is why he murdered his mother and then smiled straight into the camera in the last shot of the movie
@@RocklinGraves He didn't murder his mother--That was Ms. Baylock later on. The smile at the end didn't prove that he knew who he was--It just proved that he wasn't too sad about losing his parents.
it's his true nature shining through. In the sequel they note he often forgets his manners ,
As if his human behaviour has been nurtured as a mask that sometimes slips.
Great review as usual.
I would love to see a remake of the quality of Planet of the Apes. But the problem is that it is almost impossible to do a faith driven movie today adhering to one specific faith (see the next Exorcist).
Even if the movie is the weakest of the three, the story is intriguing enough to wanting to know what happens later with Damien.
Omen 2-less is more. It might have less brutal deaths than part 1,but ratchets up the suspense well.Jonathan scott taylor was perfect,lift scene was awesome....and how disturbing is that wall which ages with damien.
I disagree with about 90% of the points you made in this review...
However...
I just recently discovered your channel and... IT IS MY JAM!!!!
Keep kickin ass darlin.
Haha thank you! Can’t win em all I guess but I really appreciate it!
@@RocklinGraves -
Nah. You killin it, honey.
Keep it up.
Also… you weren’t wrong.
All the things that you said SHOULD BE in a sequel to the Omen… all those points were dead on.
(Spoilers: They’re all just in part 3. Hahahaha.
Part 2 was indeed a teenage rehash.)
This movie scared the hell out of me when I saw it in a theater in 1978. I was so upset that I FAINTED when I returned home!
What is a bit odd is that Damien is initially horrified and upset when he finds out he's the Antichrist, then very quickly accepts it and relishes it.
It is the same in the book. Neither the book nor the film show how he quickly goes from being distressed to finding out his identity, to embracing it.
Omen 2 was really good imo. Not up there with the first but still good. Maybe because I saw it for the first time when I was young and it scared me. Watched it recently and I still liked it. You were super hard on it lol. I really like how so many people were secretly helping his rise and the twist that his stepmom was one of them was unexpected. Loved the scene where he discovered who he was. I was surprised when you said you liked it at the end because it sounded like you didn't. I look forward to the next video. I didn't like part 3 so I'm interested in your opinion. Love the channel man. Hope it continues to grow! Thanks!
Defended Exorcist Believer, roasts Omen 2! 😂😢 Just giving you shit man 😊
Thanks for watching as always man. I had a lot of criticism for the movie yes but I also did have some good stuff to say about it. It's a decent movie, but I don't think it's great... also regarding the Believer thing... it's important to take the perspective into account. I've been very critical of Believer since it came out every time I've talked about it. It's not a good movie, but I think it's so far from being the atrocity a lot of people are saying it is, which is why I've tried to really emphasize the things I thought it did well since they don't get acknowledged a lot of the time. I also haven't done an in-depth video on Believer so I haven't gotten to really get into my frustrations with it in the way I did with this video and Omen II. I wouldn't say I'm roasting this movie honestly none of the issues I had with it were deal-breakers and I wasn't bashing it or anything, just trying to have level criticism, and coming off the first movie there was a lot that I noticed. Trust me, Believer will get it's deep dive and I hope I can clear things up with people thinking I'm defending the movie's problems... far from it. All in all I did enjoy Omen II, it's really just the lack of narrative focus and meaningful progression that takes it down a few notches. I know this is an excessively long response to a joke lol I just thought the second comment raised an interesting conversation.
@@RocklinGraves Thanks for long response. That's part of the reason I love your channel, because it reminds me of my friends and I discussing and critiquing movies. Plus sometimes you're really funny. A lot of the bigger movie guys I watch either get pretentious or start hate-watching everything. You just like to talk about movies. Can't wait for your Omen 3 video! I always appreciate your content
If the devil can just cause accidents and kill anyone, why does he even need Damien? On another note, you could take a few scenes out of this movie and literally turn it into a heartwarming story of a nice, wealthy family lol
Several things i didn't like about this sequel;
1) Buckenhagen is killed off far too early. He could have featured so prominently until the end of this film.
2) A rivisitation or even expansion of the photograph subplot from the first film would have been great.
3) D Seltzer should really have been convinced to come onboard. Starting the film in the whitehouse would have been the perfect continuation.
Just discovered your channel and subscribed. Your reviews are entertaining and lucid which I like, especially when reviewing horror movies. I only remember the death scenes in Omen II - and the buried in sand and drowning beneath the ice always got to me, being quite claustrophobic myself. It definitely is not up to par with the first, or third for that matter but deserves a second look. Great review - I will be looking out for the others.
Thank you!
How, just how Bugenhagen got the special knives back? The knives were in police custody, after the 1st film, right?
Nothing like a RGP video to start the morning
I always liked Damien Omen 2 better than the first one. That’s just my personal preference I guess 😅
Wow just wow.
I love all 3 original Omen movies and even the remake isn't bad. Now if you want Exorcist 2 levels of crap, watch the made for tv OMEN 4. It's magnitudes of ugh lol. Good video Brother. Well done.
Thank you! I must be lucky, because I’ll be doing all of the omen movies…. oh boy
@@RocklinGraves Hey we'll suffer through by your side Brotha!! Lol
@@RocklinGraves well 4 is the only real suffering lol
God almighty you weren’t lying about Omen 4….
@@RocklinGraves lol
Mike Hodges was the original director? He was one versatile storyteller. Only seen Get Carter and Flash Gordon, but just from those two projects that shows a wide spectrum of movies. I'm sure his full take on Omen 2 would have been interesting.
Get Carter is a masterpiece. One of the greatest British films.
Damien Omen II is essentially a coming-of-age story; hence the little talk Damien and Paul have at Mark's birthday party, about puberty and all that good stuff.
In that vein, it made perfect sense to me because even though Damien (barely out of diapers in the first movie) takes well to Mrs. Baylock, it's an unconscious response a very natural human response.
Remember that even though Damien is the anti-Christ, he is still in essence restrained by his human form and subject to human frailties and weaknesses; essentially, he can even be harmed; Mrs. Baylock assures the young child “I am here to protect thee”.
At first glance, there seems to be an inconsistency with the question of Damien's vulnerabilities, but the trilogy suggests that his mortality lessened as he matured to full manhood, to the point where only the daggers could harm him.
I absolutely agree that the trilogy become obsessed with the gimmickry of finding new ways to kill off the characters who were a threat, the elevator scene where the physician is sliced in half is cheap and gratuitous, as is the scene where Joan (the reporter) is hit by a truck after enduring a Hitchcock (The Birds) inspired attack by the crow/raven (in this case, one lousy bird mind you, not even an entire flock).
I hated the way they portrayed Dr. Warren in the end with him cowering in the small room of the church in NYC and that ridiculous display of hysteria and fear, it was like opening a canned ham, otherwise Dr. Warren was just fine, up to that point.
Overall, I really enjoyed this sequel, which is more than I can say for “Final Conflict” (3rd installment) which was unspeakably horrendous, although not to be outdone by #4 which was so terrible, it can only be reviewed by the inclusion of expletives. I'm not certain that most people were even aware that there really was a 4th installment.
I absolutely love the second Omen movie 🍿🎥😎 it's a masterpiece to me
Omen 2 is a classic.
His Aunt is The Whore of Babylon .. they foreshadowed this early in the film
How so? She was probably just a satanist
I am actually super surprised that Evan thinks that the Antichrist remembers who he was from the first movie. Because as far as I can tell Damien was like 6 years old and I don't think he really had a fully formed idea that he was the antichrist so I don't think it's a push back the Memories thing he did by the second movie I just think he's learning for the first time from the people around him in Damien Omen 2 that he is different.
It just feels like it’s regressing from where the first one left off. I guess I’ve always seen it that Damien was a lot more aware of what he was in the first movie than most people felt he was. I feel like since he’s the literal son of the devil and isn’t even properly human, he doesn’t necessarily operate the same way we do which is why I was frustrated by the back tracking when he was actively showing signs of being aware of what was in the first one
@@RocklinGraves I think my dissatisfaction with Damien is more because the weak characterization...and not great acting from Johnathan Scott-Baio...makes him almost unimportant to the film. Hel Sergeant Neff had like 4.34 minutes of screen time and I felt like I understood him more and was more invested in him.
Damien almost feels like more of a fleshed out character and massive threat when he is a baby. He is all potential there and creepy smile. However, as I said, I enjoy the moments where he surprises himself with his abilities. Like when he is the only one not messed up after the poison gas leak, or his own tortured amazement that he was able to, and had the power to, kill Mark. Not to mention the time where he is able to terrify the bully with his stare and when handsome successful men treat him with a weird amount of respect and adulation that borders on...ahem...Greco-Roman sentiment...those are moments I recognize as socio-sexual, reminiscent of other motifs in Omen III, and oddly seductive.
@@RocklinGraves I think there's actually a certain feminist message to be made here. In this movie, the theme of burgeoning charismatic male sexuality that the antichrist would have to possess in droves, is echoed by the age of adolescence and all the normal struggles that might come with that, as well as a turning point in the world at the time. With Reagan being elected, there seemed to be a drift away from counterculture and back to American exceptionalism and the nuclear family. Had the character been a woman, one can't help but wonder if, instead of going to a top military school and being set up to take over the world by a network of modern day mutli-headed Leviathan and differing contestants for Whore of Babylon; a female might be locked in a Vatican high-tech exam room somewhere while they wait for her to dispense an embryo of a certain size; or she might be struggling, tied to an altar in a tunnel somewhere underground...or in a Gingerbread House...for some insane reason...while she awaits her menses.
Meanwhile, Damien could oversleep by 2 hours, slip in his own nocturnal spooge getting out of bed and fall, crack his head open, lose 70 IQ points and start calling every friend chunk of food a "chicken dinosaur" and he'd still have a cabal of senators and CEOs ready to give him a parade to celebrate his balls dropping.
@@RocklinGraves I get the idea of disliking what feels like retreading the narrative, but, I actually really appreciate the moments of revelation(pardon the pun) where the emerging qualities and abilities of Damien break through. I think there is a very strong argument to be made that Damien is at a turning point in this movie. The adult men who are grooming him are all but throwing him a bar-mitzvah...Baphomet mitzvah?
Baphometzvah!
Anyway. Even at 13, he already has a charisma that makes women and men alike fawn over him...for different reasons.
As a 13 yr old, I rented a film history book which actually had some commentary about the sexual and quasi-sexual themes running through both _Damien_ and _The Final Conflict_ many of them subtly invoking hebephilia, pederasty, and sodomy. One of the most effective scenes is when Damien is challenged by his teacher. It begins almost as a dance, but swiftly moves into a forceful rhythmic battle, and the tension it amasses just by the growing pace is unnerving. As the teacher gets less and less sure of himself, and more panicked you can feel the change in power structure.
By the time the Sergeant calls an end to it, the teacher looks awful. He actually looks devastated. By a boy whose smirk is getting more cruel, cunning and satisfied as he enjoys taking control over the teacher.
Honestly, the scene almost feels like I've watched a mental SA of an adult by a teenaged boy. For those reasons, it reminds me of a scene in _"The Strange Thing About The Johnsons"_ where 15 yr old Isaiah dominates adult Sidney. Though Isaiah's evil came from an unstable mind whereas Damien is completely sane.
Another scene that I think is super important in showing Damien budding sexuality and charisma is the scene at the party where we see guys and girls lounging around in couples, talking and flirting, when Damien comes in and sits down. There is an immediate change in the room and every girl(and one of the boys) peels away from their conversations to go hover around Damien...as if he's got a harem already. They're like moths to a flame.
@@RocklinGraves Jesus I wrote a lot. Please forgive me. I became academically interested as I wrote, and then I remembered the homoeroticism in and the sodomy scene from Omen III and I was several paragraphs in before I realized I needed to make this idea a video essay.
Every movie doesn't need a sequel.
I enjoyed Damian being halfway prescient about his overarching roll that he was born to play, amd though muddled, it was satisfying to see him come into the evil he was born to be.
The devil would want his son to feel the full weight of being a human, and the eventual devastation he would feel knowing the evil he was born to be. It would be far too two dimensional for him to know the roll he had to play from day one. Way more intriguing if he eventually realizes who he was after being manipulated by his father for his whole life.
you got an ed Norton thing going on
Damian in The Omen wasn't aware, things were just happening around him. This was the whole idea that made him scarier because he was technically innocent in the 1st film. But the idea that his father was trying to kill him does call for some memories being pushed away due to trauma.
I do think the actor playing Damian was really stiff. In the original film you just see a little boy being a little boy. Here you have a young adult trying to act like a proper military brat and that's a bit distracting.
I do like the little hints that Damian has worshippers in his life, something expanded on in the 3rd film and even the 4th film (which I think is underrated).
Damian finding out his true identity is a pretty good moment, as before the scene he was a troubled kid but after finding out he has a noticeable change within him. It's like he went through puberty.
Honestly it seems to me like he was absolutely aware of what he was, at least on some level. He took comfort in the things Baylock was saying to him, straight up killed his mother on purpose, and then smiled straight into the camera at the end of the movie, which to me is a pretty clear indication of what they were doing with the character. At the end of the day though I guess that’s up to interpretation. The reveal moment feels a little goofy to me, but that’s all preference. As to the omen 4…. I’ll have a video on that one next Friday. Thanks for watching man!
@@RocklinGraves I do remember seeing an interview where they do say he's more or less innocent in the first. May be in one of the documentaries, but with those moments I always interpreted that as being sly. Having someone come in and say "I'm here to protect thee" would make me smirk like "Cool" with the mother if you notice Baylok opened the door for him and he has his head down the whole time and when he hits her he does react with shock. The reaction to the church is the same one I get lol. But in seriousness, it could be like an allergic reaction, like his body boiling up when near religious stuff.
The ending was definitely an out of the film moment & Donner did talk about telling the actor not to smile and he did so he kept it due to how well it came off.
The writers of Part 2 likely had this same understanding and that's why they had him "learn" everything. I do agree I would've liked to see him a bit more head on, perhaps seeing the worshippers around him teaching him how to be subtle and how not to overplay his hand.
Not sure if you knew this but this was meant to be 7 films, not sure how they would've stretched it out without it becoming redundant, but I'm glad it ended up as a complete trilogy plus epilogue.
The remake Damian knew full well what he was doing lol
Actually I thought this was a very worthy sequel
My favorite movie 🍿
The sequels make sense with Damien as a parallel to Jesus Christ. It’s the 3 periods of Jesus’ life discussed in the Bible. His birth, his infancy (in some of the non canon texts) 12 year old Jesus in the temple and then a big skip to his adulthood.
_Bugenhagen!_ ha. The Omen, like countless movies that end up becoming a franchise, works better as a stand alone flick. Didn't care for either of the sequels. Not that they don't have a few decent flourishes. But overall, for me, no.
Maybe he's trying to figure out how his father and God got into it 😅😂😅
He never new who is was in the first movie
Maybe not directly, but he absolutely behaved in a malicious role. He literally killed his mother
It wasn't his fault
Why is he reading the damn Bible. Doesn't he know who his father is?😂😂😂
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
That movie was crap compared to the otiginal