THE FINAL CONFLICT (1981)
Article #1508 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-1-2005
Posting Date: 9-28-2005
Directed by Graham Baker
Featuring Sam Neill, Rossano Brazzi, Don Gordon

Damien Thorn the Anti-Christ becomes an ambassador to England in order to prevent the second coming of Christ.

My system for watching movies results in my watching certain series films out of order. I saw THE OMEN many years ago, but I’ve never seen the immediate sequel; this was the third of the series. I do remember that it never made much of a splash in the theaters, and quite frankly, I’m not surprised. Granted, any movie that purports to be about the final battle between good and evil is setting itself up to disappoint, but this one doesn’t even seem to be trying to deliver; it’s uninspired and painfully bland, despite the best efforts of a melodramatic soundtrack and the presence of several biblical quotes. The mystery and the sense of drama of the original is long gone, the death scenes (the highlights of the original movie) are fairly mundane, and Damien’s prayers to his true father are more likely to elicit snickers than shivers. Oddly enough, one more movie was dredged up out of this series, and rumor has it that is even worse than this one. As apocalypses go, this one doesn’t even rank on the Richter scale.