Damien: Omen II

There’s little doubt that Damien: Omen II primarily comes off as a surprisingly organic follow-up to its 1976 predecessor, as director Don Taylor has infused the proceedings with a level of consistency that effectively continues the storyline established within the original. The movie picks up seven years after the events of The Omen, with Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) now attending military school and slowly-but-surely coming to grips with his decidedly ominous destiny – much to the chagrin of adopted parents Richard (William Holden) and Ann (Lee Grant). Damien: Omen II has been saddled with precisely the sort of deliberate pace that one might’ve expected, as screenwriters Stanley Mann and Mike Hodges initially place the emphasis on entirely uneventful happenings (eg Richard’s various business dealings) that seem to exist only to pad out the running time. It subsequently goes without saying that the sparse yet effective kill sequences prove to be a highlight almost immediately, although, admittedly, there’s nothing here that quite compares to the infamous decapitation from the first film. (Meschach Taylor’s doomed elevator ride does come close, however.) The inclusion of a weird (but thankfully short-lived) subplot detailing Damien’s mixed feelings regarding his true identity doesn’t really jibe with his overtly sinister demeanor, while the movie’s structure oftentimes seems just a little too reminiscent to that of its forebear’s (something that’s particularly true of Richard’s creeping realization that Damien is up to no good). The end result is an effort that’ll satisfy fans of Richard Donner’s original, though detractors will probably find little here worth embracing.

**1/2 out of ****