Damien: Omen II

Damien: Omen II is a 1978 supernatural horror film directed by Don Taylor and the second installment of The Omen series. It stars William Holden and Lee Grant, with Jonathan Scott-Taylor, Robert Foxworth, Lew Ayres, Sylvia Sidney, Lance Henriksen, Ian Hendry, and Leo McKern. Set seven years after the first film, it follows a now-pubescent Damien Thorn (Scott-Taylor) as he begins to realize his destiny as the Antichrist.

Franchise producer Harvey Bernhard wrote the screen story, with a screenplay by Stanley Mann and Mike Hodges. Hodges was the original director, but was fired and replaced by Don Taylor early in production. Unlike the first film, which was shot in England and Italy, filming of the sequel took place primarily in Chicago, Illinois; Wisconsin, and Israel.

It was released by 20th Century Fox on June 9, 1978, and received mixed reviews from critics. A sequel, Omen III: The Final Conflict, was released in 1981.

Plot

A week after the events of the first film, archaeologist Carl Bugenhagen learns that Damien Thorn is still alive. Bugenhagen asks his friend Michael Morgan to deliver a box to Damien's new guardian, explained that Damien is the Antichrist and that the box contains the Seven Daggers of Megiddo needed to kill him. When Morgan expresses skepticism, Bugenhagen takes him to a local ruin to see the mural of Yigael's Wall, which was said to have been drawn by a monk who had visions of the Antichrist as he would appear from birth to adulthood. Morgan believes him upon seeing Damien's face painted on the wall, but both he and Bugenhagen are buried alive after the ruins abruptly collapse.

Seven years later, the 12-year-old Damien is living in Chicago with his industrialist uncle Richard Thorn and his wife, Ann. Damien gets along well with his cousin Mark, Richard's son from his first marriage, with whom Damien is enrolled in a military academy, but is despised by Richard's aunt, Marion, who sees him as a bad influence on Mark and threatens to cut Richard out of her will if he does not separate the two boys. Late one night, Marion suffers a fatal heart attack after being scared by a raven that appears in her room.

Over the following days, a number of other bizarre incidents occur surrounding the Thorn family; a photojournalist who tried to interview Richard is ran over by a truck after being blinded by a raven attack, a senior manager of Thorn Industries (a corporation owned by the family) drowns in a frozen lake, and two other employees are suffocated by toxic fumes following an unexpected gas leak at a factory plant. The latter incident also sickens Damien's class, who were visiting the plant at the time. At the hospital, Damien is the only student found to be unaffected by the fumes. A doctor suggests keeping him in the hospital as a precaution. The doctor later discovers that Damien's marrow cells resemble those of a jackal, but is killed by a falling elevator cable before he can report his findings.

Meanwhile, Bugenhagen's box has been found during an excavation of the ruins and delivered to the Thorn Museum. Dr. Warren, the musuem's curator and Richard's friend, opens it and finds the sacred daggers, along with a letter by Bugenhagen explaining that Damien is the Antichrist. Warren rushes to inform Richard. Mark overhears their conversation and confronts Damien, who admits to being the Devil's son. Damien pleads with Mark to join him on his rise to power, but Mark's steadfast refusal "forces" Damien to kill Mark by causing an aneurysm in his cousin's brain.

Shaken by his son's death, Richard goes to New York City to see a half-crazed Warren before being taken to the train station where Yigael's Wall is being stored in a cargo carrier. As he sees Damien's image, Warren is killed in a freak locomotive accident, convincing Richard beyond doubt that Damien is the Antichrist. Upon his return, Richard has Damien picked up from his graduation at the academy while taking Ann to the museum in order for them to retrieve the daggers. After finding them, however, Ann uses them to kill Richard, revealing herself to be a Satanist and proclaiming that she's "always belonged to him". As she screams Damien's name, Damien, having overheard the altercation, wills a nearby boiler room to explode, setting fire to the building and killing Ann. Damien leaves the burning museum and is picked up by the family driver as the fire department arrives.