La malédiction finale

Neill is very good here. Neill would go on to be one of those few actors with such a range that he can convincingly play the hero to literally the devil incarnate.

Neill has some ear popping monologues with a statue of Jesus. It's so obnoxious that I'm half amazed it wasn't cut. It all strikes me as rather career threatening for an actor and I wonder if any American actor would have done it.

But those scenes do help give this movie a bit of depth.

The first Omen was great because the Thorns weren't sure if crazy supernatural things were occurring, or if they were just crazy. Unfortunately, this one, like Omen II mostly boil down to crazy death scenes.

There's one major annoyance here... why does Damien believe the second coming will be a child*? He literally reads from the Bible. And the producers were well aware that was wrong, considering the display the relevant passages of the Bible.

It's certainly not terrible, and has some effective horror scenes. Looked at simply as a horror movie, it's kind of an oddball, but it works. But considering the seemingly end of time apocalyptic stakes, not to mention closure of the three movie arc, it's lacking, and the world surrounding Damien seems surprisingly small.

* I think the reason Damien decides to kill babies is obvious: the production wanted to do the baby killing thing.

After watching the latest Damien movie The First Omen (2024), a prequel to the original The Omen with Gregory Peck I decided to rewatch all the movies about the Antichrist Damien Thorn. The prequel was not bad but not as good as the first movie. The second one was of the same quality as the prequel. The Final Conflict (The third Omen) was like I feared, just watchable but nothing else. Sam Neil is this time playing an adult Damien Thorn. Nothing wrong with his acting but you just don't get that evil feeling when Damien was a kid. Also the ominous soundtrack that was so typical in the other movies is this time of poor quality which results in just an average movie. Rarely sequels are getting better and since I just checked the ratings for the fourth movie I think I'll leave it at that. It was a fun ride, good to remember a classic horror movie. Sometimes you have to let it go instead of trying to milk a good story.

Damien Thorn (Sam Neill) is now 32 years old and powerfully wealthy. He is appointed US Ambassador to Great Britain like his father. A celestial alignment proclaims the second coming of Christ. Damien organizes to kill all the baby boys born at the alignment. In the meanwhile, a group of priests attempt to kill Damien with the only weapon capable of the task: the 7 knives of Megiddo.

This is the third movie of the series and guess what, the style isn't there anymore. There isn't one memorable scene in this movie. The biggest draw is the acting skills of Sam Neill. He shows that he has power and the presence to be the antichrist. Other than him, there isn't anything there. He's very compelling as the evil Damien, but there is a lot of unreasonableness going on here. It seems that the cops would notice something is going on. And it seems that the priests should be better armed. I know only the knives can kill Damien but having guns would be very useful.

A fairly good end to the trilogy, although it's a shame the threatened armaggeddon never comes off (as in the later novels). Sam Neill puts in a good performance as the Devil's son and is surrounded by decent character actors. However, how Jerry Goldsmith didn't win an Oscar for the score, I will never know. It's absolutely amazing and proves music really can improve a film (just imagine a score-less Psycho, for example).

This film begins with a construction project uncovering some ancient daggers which were buried many years earlier. It is then revealed that these 7 daggers are known as the "Daggers of Megiddo" and they were made for only one purpose--to kill the Antichrist when he finally appears on Earth. The scene then shifts to a corporate CEO by the name of "Damien Thorn" (Sam Neill) negotiating with the "President of the United States" (played by Mason Adams) on his conditions for accepting the ambassadorship to Great Britain. For purely political reasons, the President gives Damien everything he wants. In the process, however, he unwittingly fulfills an ancient prophecy that the Antichrist would begin his rise to power in the British Isles. Not long afterward, a special astronomical event occurs which is interpreted by certain monks in an Italian monastery that Jesus is about to be reborn. Not only that, but in order to facilitate this event, they are now obligated to use the Daggers of Megiddo to kill the person they know to be the Antichrist--Damien Thorne. What they don't realize, however, is that Damien is fully aware of their intentions--and he is willing to do whatever it takes to ensure his claim to world power. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this turned out to be a satisfactory final installment of the Omen Trilogy as it contained some decent suspense along with solid performances by both Sam Neill and Lisa Harrow (as "Kate Reynolds"). Admittedly, I didn't much care for the rather phony religious mumbo-jumbo thrown in at various times, but even so, the film still managed to pass the time well enough, and I have rated it accordingly. Average.