In this second installment of the Omen trilogy, Damien (Jonathan Scott Taylor) discovers he is the devil.

Damien, and his cousin Mark, attend military academy and it becomes increasingly clear that there is something odd about Damien.

Powers that seem to be controlled by him kill anyone who discovers who he is, using favored tools of jackals pecking at the eyes, elevator accidents and train squashing.

"Damien is a joy; although, to be nit-picky, his moves remind one of Mr Spock's legendary Spockalise, without the neck nip."

"For a moment there I thought Damien regretted finding out he was old 666. Thankfully, after a short moment of tearful waterside reflection, he is soon back at it again."

"That is just so cool - to be able to win fights at school like that."

"Not nearly as nasty as it could have been - I still get flash backs of the sheet of glass through the neck in the first movie."

"There was a defiant lack of nakedness."

"That's what I call being rich: Getting a whole party of people to watch fireworks going off in the garden, by looking out of the window."

Every decade there comes along a series of movies which stick out in the popular consciousness. Omen was one of them. It was a sort of acceptable Exorcist; acceptable, perhaps, because it was more unbelievable, and therefore less threatening, and, pleasingly, with less vomit. But boy how that choir busted ass to scare us so.

An eerie cornucopia of incident, peppered with moments of extreme horror and an uneasiness that one will take with you to bed and make you flip constantly lest you be mashed by those unseen forces from exactly the other direction to which you are facing.

Make sure you sleep with the windows closed after watching this movie, it is only inevitable a bird will accidentally fly in that night...

Understatement:

"The whore of Babylon... From the book of Revelations: The 10 kings shall hate the whore and make her desolate and naked; shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire."...

"Oooh - not very nice."

Tin of cross shaped spaghetti in blood red sauce on crosses of bread.

There is a terrible dearth of humor in this production. Disappointingly there are no custard pies at all.

There are a number of horrible deaths, none of which approach the sheer double glazed slow motion beauty of the sheet of glass though the neck of the first Omen movie, but watch for the roadside Jackal splaying which could be being played for laughs in a dark 'bad makeup and hair day' kind of way.

None whatsoever. Damien has been said to have 'undress me eyes' by some of the more flirtatious of vixens. At his age, though, this would be illegal.

Whilst not as horrendously nerve-wracking as the first movie, the underlying tension, peppered with the playfully-explicit moments of death, works well.

You will never be able to sit through another choir recital again if they attempt this scary music, lest you expect something from the heavens to come smack you in the head (such as a chandelier or strip lighting depending on how much you have paid for the seats).

Most dogs find this movie terrifying. Ensure their food bowl is full before watching, to enable them to run hysterically outside in the more scary moments. Make sure their water bowl is empty to stop them gargling noisily when they get back to the picture.

Cats will watch carefully, noting down when the dog leaves the room for later retribution.

Jackal's and other mean assed birds love this movie for obvious reasons. Warning: Ensure sufficient bird seed is on hand to avoid the otherwise inevitable feasting upon your eyes when you fall to sleep.

Keep going to church; work on your kneeling, perhaps take up a martial art which uses knives.

Under 10.

A World War Two exploded hand grenade carefully reconstructed (for the boxed set of three movies).

We were too busy screaming to notice any of the dialogue.

Yes. Christian religo-babble is attempted in various moments of reflective demonic discussions. However, there is no talking with the back of the throat which is a bonus.

The second Omen of three, better than the third, but not as good as the first. Still, manages to scare the willies out of you for its sheer evilness at times. A joy.

August 10, 2002