Barbaras Baby - Omen III

Neill is very good here. Neill would go on to be one of those few actors with such a range that he can convincingly play the hero to literally the devil incarnate.

Neill has some ear popping monologues with a statue of Jesus. It's so obnoxious that I'm half amazed it wasn't cut. It all strikes me as rather career threatening for an actor and I wonder if any American actor would have done it.

But those scenes do help give this movie a bit of depth.

The first Omen was great because the Thorns weren't sure if crazy supernatural things were occurring, or if they were just crazy. Unfortunately, this one, like Omen II mostly boil down to crazy death scenes.

There's one major annoyance here... why does Damien believe the second coming will be a child*? He literally reads from the Bible. And the producers were well aware that was wrong, considering the display the relevant passages of the Bible.

It's certainly not terrible, and has some effective horror scenes. Looked at simply as a horror movie, it's kind of an oddball, but it works. But considering the seemingly end of time apocalyptic stakes, not to mention closure of the three movie arc, it's lacking, and the world surrounding Damien seems surprisingly small.

* I think the reason Damien decides to kill babies is obvious: the production wanted to do the baby killing thing.

As far as horror films go, I believe The Final Conflict has gotten a bad rap. Now, this is obviously not some all time greatest movie of all time or anything like that, but it really is a well made film, and a good horror film. Considering that I only watch horror movies, and every review I've done on IMDb has been extremely negative of really horrible horror films (hence my name) this being the first positive review I've given is really saying something, at least for me anyway :) In The Final Conflict, our hero (or rather not I guess, since he IS the anti-Christ) Damien is all grown up and using his demonic ways to basically take over the world for Satan. The one melodramatic scene where he gives his little speech to his father Satan is pretty stupid and could have done without (although the scuptlure of Christ in that scnece is actually a pretty amazing work of art), but other than that this is a fine horror film. The atmosphere is great, decent performances. His scene with the president (played by Mason Adams) makes you chuckle and ties in so well how all politicians (as well as everything to do with politics) are so deeply in league with Satan.

A couple shocking violent scenes, really creepy atmosphere, great cinematogrpahy - this film is clearly from an analogue age, before digital anything was in use. Perhaps this is part of the reason many don't like this movie, today's horror films are a lot easier to make due to digital advances (which is a good thing) so they appear to have high production quality, but are really terrible made, written and directed. The final conflict is well made, and of course the score by Jerry Goldsmith is excellent and adds much to the film, definitely would have been a worse movie without his score, I can't say enough how good it is. The mix of very old musical ideas with modern ones, (as well as a few tritones of course) really makes the movie in many ways for me.

So see The Final Conflict if your a horror fan.

The horror in this movie is so bad it's funny! Every time a monk gets anywhere near Damien the poor guy falls off a bridge or drops down a hole or just slips on a banana peel or something.

On the other hand, the smart and pretty lady reporter gets her hands on Damien right away, without any trouble. It's said that Sam Neill who plays Damien and Lisa Harrow who plays Kate Reynolds were actually falling in love for real as this movie was being made. It really shows! Aside from being just gorgeous, Lisa Harrow was a good actress. You can see that her character has at least three sides to her. As a reporter, she's intrigued by Damien's vast wealth and growing political power. As a mother, she's frightened of his influence over her troubled teenage son. And as a woman, she can't help responding to the sheer excitement of his darkly sexual charisma. But what makes this interesting is that the story line always treats her character with respect. Her sexual feelings don't cancel out her heart or her intelligence, they just make her more mature and sympathetic.

Why is it that major stars like Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan never play anyone half as interesting as this?

A fairly good end to the trilogy, although it's a shame the threatened armaggeddon never comes off (as in the later novels). Sam Neill puts in a good performance as the Devil's son and is surrounded by decent character actors. However, how Jerry Goldsmith didn't win an Oscar for the score, I will never know. It's absolutely amazing and proves music really can improve a film (just imagine a score-less Psycho, for example).

Damien Thorn (Sam Neill) is now 32 years old and powerfully wealthy. He is appointed US Ambassador to Great Britain like his father. A celestial alignment proclaims the second coming of Christ. Damien organizes to kill all the baby boys born at the alignment. In the meanwhile, a group of priests attempt to kill Damien with the only weapon capable of the task: the 7 knives of Megiddo.

This is the third movie of the series and guess what, the style isn't there anymore. There isn't one memorable scene in this movie. The biggest draw is the acting skills of Sam Neill. He shows that he has power and the presence to be the antichrist. Other than him, there isn't anything there. He's very compelling as the evil Damien, but there is a lot of unreasonableness going on here. It seems that the cops would notice something is going on. And it seems that the priests should be better armed. I know only the knives can kill Damien but having guns would be very useful.