Barbaras Baby – Omen III (1981)

Barbaras Baby – Omen III: Directed by Graham Baker. With Sam Neill, Rossano Brazzi, Don Gordon, Lisa Harrow. The now adult Antichrist plots to eliminate his future divine opponent while a cabal of monks plot to stop him.

“The original u0026quot;Omenu0026quot; is one of the most chilling movies I have ever seen. Despite being slightly askew theologically, it boasted outstanding performances from Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner etc., an intelligent script, and above all chilling atmospherics thanks to director Richard Donner and the powerful Jerry Goldsmith score. You really did believe that the end of the world had begun when it was all over.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe first sequel, u0026quot;Damien: Omen IIu0026quot; failed to match the original but still maintained reasonably good continuity from the first film and also had some fine performances too. In a sense it was a lot like u0026quot;Jaws 2u0026quot;. Not as good as the original, but still okay on the whole.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eu0026quot;The Final Conflictu0026quot; however, is a lame, miserable final chapter of the trilogy and brings the terrifying events of the original to a lame and utterly weak climax that on the way is filled with some of the most gaping plot holes imaginable. None more spectacular than adult Damien at one point saying he wants to run for the Senate in u0026quot;84u0026quot;. Were the producers, director and writers so dense and stupid that they didnu0026#39;t realize that by saying that they were retroactively placing all the events of the first film in the 1950s? (Gregory Pecku0026#39;s lapels and David Warneru0026#39;s hairstyle, not to mention the automobiles seemed pretty 70s to me!) Whatu0026#39;s the big deal with these events in Israel and Egypt that are being talked about frequently yet have no relevance whatsoever to the final climax? What happened to that u0026quot;childu0026quot; that Father DeCarlo says is now safe and what does it have to do with the climax? How was Father Spiletto (the priest who saw the birth of Damien and arranged the adoption in the first film) able to u0026quot;confessu0026quot; to Father DeCarlo since we saw in u0026quot;The Omenu0026quot; that he was unable to speak and could only scribble random things with his left hand? And does the ending truly represent the return of Christ and the final judgment of humanity? Evidently not, since we were served up a TV movie a decade later that I donu0026#39;t think Iu0026#39;ll waste my time seeing. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWatching Sam Neill recite his Satanic prayers evoked howls of laughter from me. A far contrast to Billie Whitelawu0026#39;s nanny in the original who truly seemed like a servant of Satan. I guess perhaps the moral of the story is that its better to depict the anti-Christ as a child than as a man, where the whole sense of unanticipated terror about what the future will bring when he comes to power is still there. Indeed, the terror of u0026quot;The Omenu0026quot; was in the fact that you could sense that the beginning of the end had arrived but the terror of what was still to come was still in your imagination to fear and worry about. u0026quot;The Final Conflictu0026quot;, by tackling subject matter that I think is impossible to depict or envision in a credible fashion when the gimmick has already worn out after two previous movies, was in a sense doomed to fail from the outset, though perhaps if there had been some actors the stature of Peck or Holden this time out, the results would have been better.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eStick to the first film and the second, and envision your own scenario of how it all resolved itself. Youu0026#39;ll scare yourself a lot more that way than this film ever will.”