mosquitodragon’s review published on Letterboxd:
"Your pain on the cross was but a splinter compared to the agony of my father. Cast out of heaven, the fallen angel, banished, reviled. I will drive deeper the thorns into your rancid carcass, you profaner of vices. Cursed Nazarene. Satan, I will avenge thy torment, by destroying the Christ forever."
See, this is my problem with horror movie Satanists (even when they're the son of Satan himself). They're so resentful! They're like entitled little teenagers, with their petty little gripes with Jesus and God. All this time they spend profaning churches - hardly existentially terrifying, is it? Vandalism? Insults? And yet these depictions have always seemed to represent such a horrifying threat to the mainstream western audiences of movies like these.
Of course, some movies do it better than others. I venture to suggest that The Omen III: The Final Conflict is one of the less effective attempts. Damien really just comes across as a bit of a fruit loop. In fact, this sequel does reintroduce the note of ambiguity I fully endorsed in the original film - the notion that he may not be the Antichrist at all, but just someone who a cult of nutcases think is the Antichrist. It was never prominently suggested in that case, and I suspect it's an unintended consequence of this film's general lack of punch. But it's there, at least.
The film is very well shot and it's lifted by yet another majestic Jerry Goldsmith score. This may not be a scintillating horror experience, but its very polish as a big-budget effort makes it quite watchable. Its most endearing attribute is its sudden willingness to jag into pretty bonkers territory, like the murder of babies (in a 20th Century Fox film, FFS!!!) But it does feel like the film-makers weren't even aware they were crossing these boundaries. There's one sex scene between Sam Neill and Lisa Harrow which suddenly becomes a (strongly suggested) anal rape scene, like out of nowhere... and then we still get a scene right afterwards where Harrow shows concern for Neill, as if that was just a slightly disturbing occurrence and it hadn't really affected their relationship at all.
Neill is pretty good in the role too, but this gets filed under "fairly watchable, entirely forgettable". Box ticked.
