It's hard to discern which genre this film spawned, or begat, if you prefer -- lousy 80's horror pics like "Friday the 13th," or lousy 90's fundamentalist thrillers a la "Left Behind." One one level, it panders to a viewer's voyeurism and bloodlust. Lots of characters get killed, some of them in rather creative ways, and there tends to be plenty of splatter (don't eat before the scene where the lady reporter in the fake fur buys it). Now, that's sick, but it has its own sort of integrity. What makes "D:O2" especially hideous, however, is its hypocrisy. In this movie, only the crazy characters are right about little Damien, and after proclaiming the truth -- that he is the Anti-Christ -- they are destroyed by a vast, sinister conspiracy. So Christianity, a global religion that preaches selflessness and love, is turned into an underground movement defined by paranoia and revenged. It's a survivalist's wet dream.
You have to work hard, though, to be disturbed by "D:O2" since the film-making is so laughably bad that you don't notice the rancid ideology. Bill Holden is a great actor, but somehow he's made his share of bombs and "Damien: Omen II" is his thermonuclear blast. His trademark cragginess and churlishness don't suggest a man being overwhelmed by dark forces so much as a man who wants to punch his agent. And who can blame him? In one scene, he gets into bed with wife Lee Grant, kisses her goodnight and lies there, looking disturbed. Is he wondering whether his stepson is the Anti-Christ or pondering the sad decline of his career, as evidenced by the sad decline of his co-stars? From Audrey Hepburn and Gloria Swanson to Lee Grant and Jonathan Scott-Thomas . . . it's a precipitous arc downward. If Holden is embarrassed, his co-stars are embarrassing. Lee Grant has two facial expressions, mildly amused and mildly menacing, and should sue whoever costumed her, although you'll finally learn where Boy George got his fashion sense. And there are a couple of scenes that wouldn't make it into an undergraduate student film -- the long shot of William Holden's cab driving into Chicago's Cabrini Green housing project, which is doubling for New York City (!), and a scene at a military academy in which you can see the headmaster squinting at the cue cards. Oh, this is poor.
You have to work hard, though, to be disturbed by "D:O2" since the film-making is so laughably bad that you don't notice the rancid ideology. Bill Holden is a great actor, but somehow he's made his share of bombs and "Damien: Omen II" is his thermonuclear blast. His trademark cragginess and churlishness don't suggest a man being overwhelmed by dark forces so much as a man who wants to punch his agent. And who can blame him? In one scene, he gets into bed with wife Lee Grant, kisses her goodnight and lies there, looking disturbed. Is he wondering whether his stepson is the Anti-Christ or pondering the sad decline of his career, as evidenced by the sad decline of his co-stars? From Audrey Hepburn and Gloria Swanson to Lee Grant and Jonathan Scott-Thomas . . . it's a precipitous arc downward. If Holden is embarrassed, his co-stars are embarrassing. Lee Grant has two facial expressions, mildly amused and mildly menacing, and should sue whoever costumed her, although you'll finally learn where Boy George got his fashion sense. And there are a couple of scenes that wouldn't make it into an undergraduate student film -- the long shot of William Holden's cab driving into Chicago's Cabrini Green housing project, which is doubling for New York City (!), and a scene at a military academy in which you can see the headmaster squinting at the cue cards. Oh, this is poor.