Bad Sign

By Richard Scheckel

DAMIEN-- OMEN II Directed by Don Taylor Screenplay by Stanley Mann and Michael Hodges

Damien, the devil's spawn of The Omen, which was such a large success two summers ago, is alive and well and living in Chicago in this sequel. Unfortunately, the movie is not well at all and cannot even be said to be alive. One expects little enough from sequels, but even that bare minimum is not attained by this clunker.

Part of the problem is that little Damien has miraculously aged almost a decade in the two years since we left him tearless at his parents' grave, a nominal orphan at five. That angelic-looking child -- so hard to believe Satan had anything to do with him! -- is now a broody cadet in a military school. Though the deviltry goes somewhat further than short-sheeting the beds or spreading rumors about saltpeter in the food, there is still not enough contrast between Damien's visible aspect and his true nature to make him either lively or ironic.

Beyond that, the film makers have disastrously erred by telling their story in a bluntly objective manner. One reason the original worked so nicely was that events unfolded mainly from the point of view of Damien's disbelieving parents. Even after they began to see that there was something fishy about their offspring, they still had to discover the hard way just how large was the conspiracy of devil's disciples assigned to protect the secret of his origins and mission. In the new movie most of Damien's protectors telegraph their satanic allegiance the minute they appear, and William Holden as his decent uncle-guardian is constantly kept at a distance from the lad's evil doings.

Since we are also shielded from the few suspicions that Holden is permitted, we never make the kind of identification with a strong, appealing, endangered figure that the horror genre requires. The result is a movie full of much tedious talk relieved by the occasional gaudy murder.

For the record, Lee Grant plays Holden's wife, the veterans Sylvia Sidney and Lew Ayres are present as early victims of the devil's ire. Damien and his cousin, who seems to represent heaven-inspired goodness, are played by Jonathan Scott-Taylor and Lucas Donat. In the end, Damien survives, for no good reason except the producers' hopes to squeeze one more sequel out of him. It is, of course, possible that they are Beelzebub's agents in a new strategy of boring us so profoundly that we will turn to evil to cheer ourselves up.

-- Richard Schickel

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