Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Since the sudden and suspicious deaths of his parents, young Damien has been in the charge of his wealthy aunt and uncle and enrolled in a military school. Widely feared to be the Antichrist, he relentlessly plots to seize control of his uncle's business empire — and the world.
Damien: Omen II is a competent but formulaic sequel that recycles the kill-set-piece structure of the original without meaningfully advancing the mythology. The military academy setting is a serviceable change of scenery, but the plot mechanics—Damien gradually learning his identity while elaborate deaths befall those around him—feel repetitive rather than inventive. The acting is solid for the genre, with William Holden lending his usual gravitas and Jonathan Scott-Taylor credibly conveying Damien's dawning sinister awareness. Cinematography is workmanlike horror-thriller fare, competent but unremarkable. The ending is reasonably effective in its grim inevitability but lacks the shocking punch of the original's finale.