Review of The Final Conflict (1981) by Steve W — 03 Nov 2009

As much as I wanted to like this film, it was completely anticlimactic and underwhelming in every way. This is a tough review.

The Good:

Sam Neill is pretty good in his role as an adult Damien. He looks like the other two child actors in the previous movies, and he has a sort of evil lurking behind those eyes.

The musical score is creepy and effective. The subplot about the cabal of monks trying to stop him was very inventive and suspenseful.

I also liked the usage of religious passages, such as Isaac sacrificing his son among many others.

The Bad:

Some of the subplots were underdeveloped. We only got to see some of grown up Damien's powers, apparently he can control animals and if he tries he can kill people using Satan powers. The monks also talk about using guns even though Damien is immortal unless the daggers are used, but I would have liked to see what would happen if they had tried.

The subplot with Dean's newborn son being the potential Holy Child could have easily been used as the ending. A distraught Dean could have defied his master and used the already collected daggers to kill the Antichrist.

The Consensus:

Omen III: Final Conflict is not a bad film, but considering the quality of the first two the movies this installment manages to linger around giving us only a taste of what it could bring, and ultimately ends it with a cliche ending we all could have guessed.