Damien: Omen II
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| Damien: Omen II | |
|---|---|
 Damien: Omen II DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Don Taylor |
| Produced by | Harvey Bernhard |
| Written by | Harvey Bernhard Stanley Mann Michael Hodges |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Cinematography | Bill Butler |
| Editing by | Robert Brown |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Running time | 107 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$4 million |
| Preceded by | The Omen |
| Followed by | Omen III: The Final Conflict |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Damien: Omen II, is a 1978 sequel to the iconic horror film The Omen and the second film in The Omen series. Set seven years after the first film, it was directed by Don Taylor and stars William Holden, Lee Grant, Sylvia Sidney, Lew Ayres, Robert Foxworth, and Jonathan Scott-Taylor. The film was followed by a third installment, Omen III: The Final Conflict, in 1981.
- Tagline: The First Time Was Only A Warning.
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[edit] Crew & Cast
David Seltzer, who wrote the first film's screenplay, was asked by the producers to write the second. Seltzer refused as he had no interest in writing sequels. Years later, Seltzer commented that had he written the story for the second Omen, he would have set it the day after the first movie, with Damien a child living in The White House. With Seltzer turning down Omen II, producer Harvey Bernhard duly outlined the story himself, and Stanley Mann was hired to write the screenplay.
After Bernhard had finished writing the story outline and was given the green light to start the production, the first person he contacted was Jerry Goldsmith because of the composer's busy schedule. Bernhard also felt that Goldsmith's music for The Omen was the highest point of that movie, and that without Goldsmith's music, the sequel would not be successful. Goldsmith's Omen II score uses similar motifs to his original Omen score, but for the most part, Goldsmith avoided re-using the same musical cues. In fact, the first movie's famous "Ave Santani" theme is used only partially, just before the closing credits begin. Goldsmith composed a largely different main title theme for Omen II, albeit one that utilises Latin phrases as "Ave Satani" had done. Goldsmith's Omen II score allows eerie choral effects and unusual electronic sound designs to take precedence over the piano and gothic chanting.
Richard Donner, director of the first Omen movie, was not available to direct the second, as he was busy working on Superman. British film director Mike Hodges was hired to helm the movie. During production, the producers believed that Hodges' methods were too slow, and so they fired him and replaced him with Don Taylor, who had a reputation for finishing films on time and under budget. However, the few scenes Hodges directed (some of the footage at the factory and at the military academy, all of the early archaeology scenes, and the dinner where Aunt Marion shows her concern about Damien) remained in the completed film, for which Hodges retains a story credit. In recent interviews, Hodges has commented sanguinely on his experiences working on Omen II.
William Holden was the original choice to star as Robert Thorn in the first Omen, but turned it down as he did not want to star in a picture about the devil. Gregory Peck was selected as his replacement. The Omen went on to become a huge hit and Holden made sure he did not turn down the part of Richard Thorn in the sequel. Lee Grant was a fan of the first Omen and accepted enthusiastically the role of Ann Thorn.
Ray Berwick (1914 - 1990) trained and handled the crows used for several scenes in the film. Live birds and a crow-puppet were used for the attack on photojournalist Joan Hart. Berwick also trained the avian actors in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963).
[edit] Locations
The movie was set in Chicago and was largely filmed in downtown Chicago and on the campus of Lake Forest Academy (formerly the Armour Estate) in Lake Forest, Illinois. The Thorn Mansion is the Lake Forest Academy; all exteriors had to be shot in the back garden of the academy/estate because the school had erected a very modern structure in front of the old estate.
The Academy scenes were filmed at the Geneva Lake campus of Northwestern Military and Naval Academy. The cadets at the military academy were real students at the Lake Geneva, Wisconsin military academy where the film was shot. The skating scene was filmed on Catfish Lake in Eagle River, Wisconsin using local children as the skaters. The local paramedics were standing by in case any of the children fell through the ice. The "Thorn Industries" building was actually Chicago's city hall.
Another scene took place at Graceland Cemetery. One scene required Mr. Thorn to travel to New York City to meet a character by railroad tracks. In New York City, though, there are no railroad tracks that deliver freight into the city. The background scene did not look like New York City, it was Downtown Chicago because you could see the Chicago Board of Trade or CBOT tower and the lower floors of the Sears Tower. Railroad tracks are in Downtown Chicago, not New York City. Mr. Thorn flies out Meigs Field in a Learjet but in the movie, we do not see the plane takeoff. Meigs Field was decommissioned in 2005, by Mayor Richard M. Daley. The "possessed" diesel switcher at Thorns supposedly New York meeting with Charles belonged to the now long defunct Rock Island railroad. The Rock Island did not reach New York and was a Chicago based railway.
[edit] Plot summary
Damien Thorn is now 13 and living with his uncle Richard Thorn, a wealthy industrialist, his uncle's second wife, Ann, and Richard's son from his first marriage, Mark. Damien and Mark are both enrolled in a military academy; meanwhile, Thorn Industries is making tentative moves to expand its operations into Third World agriculture.
The young Damien doesn't understand his true potential, but others are beginning to suspect that he is not the sweet young boy that he appears to be. However, when he discovers his true identity, he is initially upset at being a vehicle for the Antichrist, knowing there is nothing he can do to circumvent his destiny (and killing the brother he loves in process). Nevertheless, within his life there are many people working to help him ascend to his rightful place as the Antichrist, but at the same time, lone journalists, doctors, scientists and friends all try to stop him and warn his foster parents. Those who attempt to find the truth about Damien, and who try to stop him, are invariably killed in gruesome ways.
The Seven Sacred Daggers of Megiddo from the first film (reputedly the only weapons able to kill the Anti-Christ, according to the series' interior logic) make a reappearance.
[edit] Deaths
| Character | Cause of death |
|---|---|
| Carl Bugenhagen and Michael Morgan | Buried alive in sand and debris at an old ruin at the start of the film |
| Aunt Marion | Has a heart attack while trying to shoo away the Satanic crow |
| Joan Hart | Hit by a truck after having her eyes plucked out by the crow |
| Bill Atherton | Falls through the ice and drowns (or freezes) to death |
| David Pasarian and Assistant | Gassed by poisonous fumes during a tour by cadets from Damien's military school. |
| Dr William Kane | Bisected by falling elevator cable. |
| Mark Thorn | Damien causes an aneurysm in Mark's brain after he refused to join him |
| Dr Charles Warren | Impaled between train cars |
| Richard Thorn | Stabbed by Ann with the daggers he tried to kill Damien with |
| Ann Thorn | Set on fire when Damien destroys the boiler room. Was depicted as The Whore of Babylon due to Ann's uncomfortable nature when told by Charles Warren earlier in the film in a slide presentation. |
[edit] Cast
- William Holden ... Richard Thorn
- Lee Grant ... Ann Thorn
- Jonathan Scott-Taylor ... Damien Thorn
- John J. Newcombe...Teddy
- Lucas Donat...Mark Thorn
- Leo McKern...Carl Bugenhagen (uncredited)
- Robert Foxworth ... Paul Buher
- Nicholas Pryor ... Dr. Charles Warren
- Sylvia Sidney ... Aunt Marion
- Lew Ayres ... Bill Atherton
- Lance Henriksen ... Master Sergeant Daniel Neff
- Elizabeth Shephard ... Joan Hart
- Meshach Taylor ... Dr. Kane
- Allan Arbus ... Pasarian
- Fritz Ford ... Murray
- John Charles Burns ... Butler
- Paul Cook ... Colonel
- Diane Daniels ... Jane
- Robert E. Ingham ... Teacher
- William B. Fosser ... Minister
- Corney Morgan ... Greenhouse Technician
- Russell P. Delia ... Truck Driver
- Judith Dowd ... Maid
- Thomas O. Erhart Jr. ... Sergeant #1
- Sorin Serene Pricopie ... Pasarian's Assistant
- Robert J. Jones Jr. ... Tour Guide
- Rusdi Lane ... Jim Gardner
- Charles Mountain ... Burial Priest
- Cornelia Sanders ... Young Girl
- Felix Shuman ... Dr. Fiedler
- James Spinks ... Technician #1
- Owen Sullivan ... Byron
- William J. Whelehan ... Security Guard
- Ian Hendry ... Michael (uncredited)
- Gus Kaprales ... Limo Driver (uncredited)
[edit] Trivia
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- There is a song on one of Harry Connick, Jr.s platinum Christmas albums, the song "I Come With Love", that is based on a scene from Omen II.
- The song, "The Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden was supposedly based on a nightmare Steve Harris had about this movie.
[edit] Reaction
The film received mixed reviews. In comparison to the serious tone of the original, there were moments during the acclaimed death scenes (including the famous sequence in which a woman's eyes are pecked out by a raven and she walks blind onto a road only to be hit by a truck) which were unintentionally comical. The music by Jerry Goldsmith was again praised for its spooky build-up of suspense.
Joseph Howard wrote the novelisation of Damien: Omen II. The novel was a best-seller, as David Seltzer's novelisation of the first movie had been.
[edit] DVD release
The film was released as part of The Omen Quadology set in the US and UK in 2000, and therefore not available separately until 2005. In 2006, to coincide with the DVD release of the remake of the original film, The Omen and its sequels were released individually and together in an ultimate Pentology boxset digitally remastered and with more bonus features. Damien: Omen II included two new featurettes, plus the previous DVD's commentary.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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