THE FINAL CONFLICT
Infanticide galore!
The Omen series reaches its "conclusion" here, as the now-adult antichrist Damien Thorne (now played by an overly made-up Sam Neill) is appointed the American ambassador to the U.K. and sets his sights on preventing the arrival of his arch-enemy J.C.. Meanwhile, those seven magic daggers that can be used to kill him have been unearthed, sold, auctioned off, collected, and dispersed amongst seven monks who are making it their holy mission to stick it to Damien to pave the way for the Second Coming. That poor son of Satan just can't catch a break!
Man, what's to say about this one? I miss the freak accidents of the first two films; here, we have a hilarious (probably unintentionally) scene where one of the monks accidentally kills himself in a series of unfortunate mishaps which ultimately result in him swinging by a cable, wrapped in burning plastic, on national TV. Oh, and there's a nasty "suicide" scene at the beginning where, to pave way for Damien's appointment, the former ambassador is convinced by one of those satanic rottweillers to devise an overly elaborate method by which to give us one of the biggest brain-splatters I've ever seen. But without those freak accidents to move things along, The Final Conflict is in deep trouble, trying to make up for their absence with this nonsense story about this dwindling supply of monks and the hunt for J.C. two-point-oh.
Strong storytelling isn't exactly this series' strong point, and here it surpasses even the Friday The 13th movies in being unable to place itself temporally. Damien's 33 here, even though this movie was made - and takes place! - only five years after The Omen in 1976 when Damien was six. Animals, which went stark raving mad at the sight of Damien when he was a kid, are now largely afraid or calm whenever it's convenient for the script. There's even a scene where he commands a pack of beagles to attack an enemy; just try to imagine fifty or sixty Snoopy's ganging up on somebody, and see how frightening a scene that suggests to you.
This whole bit with the seven magic daggers has always been pretty silly if you ask me; sure, the whole Antichrist thing is silly, but surely somebody could've thought of a better way to eliminate him than sticking him with a magic dagger. I don't see why, say, dropping an anvil on his head should be insufficient. There are some things in storytelling I just hate, and I really don't care whether it's a failing of mine or if I'm justified in calling bullshit on lazy plotting which make obvious the creative brick walls writers run into. Silver bullets, as they're used about ninety-nine times out of a hundred (as it's used here), are such things.
Jerry Goldsmith's score is strangely subdued compared to that of the first two films, and a subdued Omen score is just about the last thing I'd ever want from him. Thankfully, subdued is one thing Sam Neill is certainly not, glowering and chewing scenery with aplomb. He gets a nice speech (with a big crucifix as his only audience) where he berates Christ, and another one later one when he instructs his massive throng of followers to take action. (he inspires them with, as penalty for failure, "an eternity in the flaccid bosom of Christ!")
At any rate, The Final Conflict does knock one quote off of my "ID these quotes!" list ("He's a virus, a parasite, feeding on my energy" in Skrew's "Charlemagne"), and a sequence about 2/3 into the film where Damien orders the extermination of all nearby babies born within a six-hour time window produces as close to a genuine chill as this series has been able to rouse in me. I can't believe I first watched this movie with my grandmother.
The movie promised it would be the final conflict indeed, and once you get to the end of this one, you'll know why a fourth installment seemed unlikely. But never bet on the permanent extinction of a money-making franchise, for yet another film came along in, uh, 1988 or so, made for TV, and by most accounts unbelievably bad. (I scarcely remember)
BACK TO MAIN PAGE BACK TO THE F's