Sick Product of a Sick System

Excellent adaptation.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Firstly, it has a seemingly fool-proof concept: the Antichrist, now a successful corporate CEO, is appointed U.S. Ambassador to England, AND president of the UN youth council. It practically writes itself. But, no, social commentary isn't brought into it; he doesn't kill his way into the U.S. Presidency, and the country is never thrown into a third world war. And to think I believed in him! You think this might also present a good chance for some overacting- but, once again, only missed opportunities. It was quite talky; Damien plays it cool, and Sam Neill's performance mostly involved making sinister expressions (at which he's a natural, granted,) and, frankly, the big lines he delivers come out kind of funny-sounding when modulated through his fake American accent (he has one of these in Jurassic Park, too, but at least that role didn't call for any serious acting.) I blame the director more than my man Sam, but I've seen some pretty terrible movies salvaged by one good performance.Why, this film even let down my bloodlusting side. It opens with a nice, gruesome death, but subsequent killings are either too silly to even guffaw at, or just plain uninspired- especially the climax.

The last and least of the OMEN trilogy. What this film offers is a fairly complex and widespread plot that draws in biblical allusions, Damien and his legion of followers, a female journalist and her son who get drawn into the battle, a squad of vigilante monks who act as assassins, plus the widespread murder of babies. If that's not an impressive selection, then go find another movie.There's a kind of 'epic' feel to this movie, which recreates Armageddon and relocates it to the UK. As so many diverse characters are involved and the film goes on for a fair length, it certainly feels like an epic and more than your average horror film. While the characters may not be more than pawns in the game, the cast is a great one, with all actors and actresses doing their bit. Sam Neill is excellently cast as Damien, and brings just the right air of evil about him in the role. Rossano Brazzi, who plays the chief monk out to get him, is also fine, although sadly his character doesn't figure in the (disappointing) finale. Don Gordon is good as Damien's misguided follower, while Lisa Harrow brings life to her clichéd role as a female journalist, who isn't just out for herself like journalists are in most films.This is a film with a nasty edge to it as well, more so than both previous films. Here, we see Damien rape his lover, we see multiple murders of young babies - a long-held taboo - and lots of grisly violence and gore. I don't understand those who say this isn't a gory film, as the version I saw certainly is. It may not be very bloody but the death scenes are really nasty, leaving your imagination to do the work. We see a shotgun suicide, people getting repeatedly stabbed, a man getting an iron in his face (that's gotta hurt...), another falling to his death, a priest gets torn apart by dogs, and in the film's spectacular "highlight", a priest's assassination attempt goes disastrously wrong, leaving him hanging from a rope, covered in a plastic sheet and burning alive.There are two main flaws with this film, as far as I can see. The first is the running time - it seems to go on forever. The second is the terribly disappointing ending, which feels rushed and is up there with TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER in terms of anti-climatic moments. Hardly a fitting ending to the trilogy, which has basically been just one big build up to this confrontation. It's over within five minutes, and leaves you feeling cheated. Aside from this major flaw, OMEN III: THE FINAL CONFLICT isn't bad at all.

"With all the power of evil, with fire and brimstone, with the intensity of hate and the foulness of Hell itself, I shall curse the world, condemning it to…a brief recession." Now this is how you make a sequel! The Final Conflict does just about everything right in building on franchise tropes and expectations and growing them to a newer, grander narrative. Damien is in full command of his power here, and it's exciting to see him at the helm rather than the omnipotent hand of Satan. Of course, he still has his minions and another Rottweiler helps him do his bidding, but seeing Damien at the head of Thorn Industries and how he worked his rise to power makes for a thrilling way to move the story forward. Neill is perfectly cast, injecting a combination of winning charm and darker torment behind his suits and smiles. Jerry Goldsmith is back once more for the score, and like with the story, he expands on his earlier work to provide a fuller, more diverse piece. Some of those angelic compositions near the end are show stopping.Omen III centres itself on an epic story where there are plenty of consequences at stake. We knew all along that Damien would rise to power, but now that he's got it, we don't know whether he'll get his ultimate goal of taking over the world. He has colleague entanglements, as he must kill the child of his assistant to rid the world of Christ, he has romantic complications with Kate, at one point disturbingly raping her in a bid to show how pain can be beautiful, and he ultimately has to face off against God himself. There's a lot more dramatic material there than there ever was in the Final Destination-like crux of the original two films. The vendetta the seven kamikaze priests vow against Damien also really puts the anti-Christ at risk, wherein the first two films his safety was always assured. Writer Andrew Birkin (most famous for his Peter Pan writings, of which you can certainly see "lost boys" aspects here) does a wonderful job of putting it all out on the table(laying it all on the alter?) for one truly thrilling battle for the ages.Not only is the story as sound as ever, but horror fans are really going to like the viciousness of the deaths throughout. With the seven vigilante monks going after Damien, and Damien himself killing off many others who stand in his way, the body count here is quite high, and like with the first two films, the producers don't hold back in staging an elaborate death scene. Since this had the films of the slasher era to compete with, the brutality of the carnage has been upped once more, and some of the deaths are quiet unsettling. The most notable being when the ambassador ties tape around the door knobs in his office, linking it all to his shotgun trigger, so when his colleagues enter his brains get splattered all over the presidential crest. Another sees a woman burn her infant son with a hot iron, and we memorably see the charred remains of the baby's face. One more, still, is when the first priest tries to kill Damien at a TV station, slipping up from the rafters and being dangled and burned in plastic as he melts in pain. The effects work is quite accomplished (done by A Clockwork Orange makeup artist Freddie Williamson), matching the menace of the acts themselves. Even the events that aren't gory still have a sinister quality to them, like when Damien, after killing an adversary at a fox hunt, rubs what he says to be "fox blood" on the face of a boy in initiation. With that and that uncomfortable rape scene, The Final Conflict certainly doesn't play it safe like a Hollywood movie should.A riveting thriller, through and grue, The Final Conflict certainly lives up to its title and offers Damien a fabulous final send off. The scope is so much larger than the first two films, and more than just a thriller it ends up becoming some grand theological statement of our times. It's pretty ballsy for a horror sequel to depict Christ on screen, but this one goes one further and gives us an ending so grand and fitting that it looks cut from Ben-Hur. As far as horror sequels go, the Omen III is certainly upper echelon. It's a shame it ended when it was just starting to hit its stride, but then again, given what would follow with the ill-advised fourth film, maybe they did good and quit while they were ahead. A must see! THE FINAL CONFLICT is quite an interesting film Damien grows up and the series ends on a satisfying note.

"It's not very action packed, is it?" said the wife. Yep – Welcome to another Omen film! This one tries to jazz things up by having Damien all growed up and in charge of a big corporation, looking to waste lots of babies as he's figured out that the Second Coming is happening in Britain. Add to that the bunch of priests who want to turn Damien into a satanic pin-cushion and you've got an action packed spectacular of epic proportions, right?No.After a nifty gunshot to the face, The Final Conflict, just like the film before it, settles in for a languid trip to ho-hum-ville. Sam Neill is fine as Damien, but the priest attacks are pretty lame, the sub-plot about the Second Coming is barely exciting, and the grand finale in a ruined abbey has hardly got a pulse. Only the appearance of a fifty foot Bee-Gee at the end is any good. There's a couple of good scenes: Damien rallying his acolytes for the big Herod-style massacre of the innocents, Damien apparently bumming his missus (he is the son of Satan after all!), and the aforementioned shotgun to the face bit, but there's an awful lot of nothing going on between all this. The Omen series must be one of the least interesting series out there. Final Conflict? Not much of a conflict at all, more like a 'slight scuffle'.