Taliesin Meets: Damien: Omen II

Some three years on in the real world, 7 in the actual movie timeline, and the cinema returned to the Omen – directed this time with Don Taylor directing.

Actually the film begins just a week after the failed attempt on Damien’s life and archaeologist/theologian Carl Bugenhagen (Leo McKern) is trying to convince a colleague that Damien is the antichrist and a message should be taken, along with the daggers that can kill him, to his uncle and new guardian Richard Thorn (William Holden).

It should be noted that Holden turned down the lead in the first film but more importantly it should also be noted that the daggers were not mystically teleporting daggers. There was a novelisation of the film and it was stated, in the book, that the daggers were returned to Bugenhagen by a priest from the church at the end of the first film (why the police didn’t take them as evidence is unknown, I read the novelisation decades ago and really can’t remember if it addressed that point too.)

Yigael's Wall

Anyway Bugenhagen takes his colleague to a dig where Yigael's Wall has been revealed. It shows four faces of the antichrist (at 4 pinnacle points) and the first picture has Damien from film number 1. Two points come to mind here. Firstly that this film ignores that idea that everything might be explainable and is distinctly supernatural in timbre. Secondly we discover later that the devil appeared to Yigael and tormented him with visions – leading the man to paint these prophetic images. The forces of evil then spend a lot of time killing those who know the truth about Damien.

buried alive

It does beg the question, firstly, of why the devil would tip his hand and give a mad hermit visions that could be painted and subsequently point out the identity of the antichrist? Secondly it really does seem – through both these films – that God is impotent. All antagonists of the Devil are killed and not one is saved (even if they are carrying a cross) but often they live long enough to pass the message along. Not so much Bugenhagen, however, as he and his colleague are buried alive.

Jonathon Scott-Taylor as Damien

The film then jumps forward the 7 years mentioned earlier and we watch Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) who attends a military academy with his cousin (Lucas Donat) and is just beginning to learn what he is – in a moment of equal and opposite reaction he screams to the air “Why me?” The film has those who might stand in his way (or diminish the wealth he will inherit) die one by one. We discover that he has Jackal’s blood (inherited from his biological mother, no doubt). Whether it is this that makes him impervious to disease and immune to poisons or whether that came from his infernal father is not covered. Presumably if it is the former he is susceptible to kennel cough. Rather than a Rottweiler, his animal protector is a crow (indeed several crows) this time.

devil crow

It’s not a bad flick all told but it wasn’t as strong as the first film. I do remember, as a kid, watching the vhs of it over and over again, however.

Stay tuned for me looking at Omen III: The Final Conflict, in the meantime the imdb page is here.