Skip to main content

Damien: The Omen 2 (1978) - Don Taylor

The VHS section at Goodwill's are chalk full of gems like this one. This horror, and I use the term lightly, film is pretty hilarious. It is dated and cheap and those two together provide for some really fun laugh out loud moments. I know this is supposed to be a scary horror movie. It's not. It is just an underwhelming sequel with no direction or creativity.

The movie continues with the story of Damien the Antichrist child from the first movie. In this film, Damien is a teenager and he learns that he is put here by Satan to do his bidding. He becomes self-aware I suppose. It is a really good sounding story that just doesn't pan out very well. It is just really... blah. Even the actors seem bored. Unintentionally funny and frighteningly boring. I hope that makes sense.

I would love to share with you my two favorite deaths from the film. Firstly, The woman that gets her eyes pecked out by satanic flocks of crows then stumbles into traffic only to be hit by a truck. Apparently that that turns her into a rag-doll. That one was quite juicy. Is that a weird way to describe that? Secondly, a man gets hit by a train and that train carries the man to his great demise. Each plagued by cheap effects to the delight of the viewer.

"THESE DAGGERS!!!"
  • The scene in which a bunch of ice skaters are in trouble actually was cast with just regular skaters. They had extra paramedics on hand to ensure safety. 
  • This was William Holden's only Horror picture. 
  • The films budget was $5.2 million, more than the first movie and they couldn't pull it together. They still had creative problems and went through many crew changes. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Human Monster (1939) - Walter Summers

Bela Lugosi turns in a fantastic performance. It is right on par with the exact same films that had made him famous like Dracula . My personal favorite being The Black Cat . Like the latter, this film suffered from poor circulation and lack of advertisement. Either that or the public wasn't interested in seeing Lugosi in anything else other than his famous bloodsucker. This film has a broad and well acted plot that was rich with detail.  Lugosi has two sides in this picture. His well loved and compassionate side. The other is a strict, brutal lone shark that acts as a sinister villain to blind and handicapped people. He really brutalizes his victims. It's a macabre message to pay your bills.  The film is slow moving and plagued by the usual setbacks from its time. Most of the nation wasn't really that concerned with horror at the time. But studios knew that they would always have an audience. This film is a prime example of that. It's sad because it's 

Ju-On (2000) - Takashi Shimizu

Watching Japanese horror is similar to watching British comedy. If you enjoy dry whit then you probably enjoy the boys of Monty Python in drag. That's the joke, they're dressed like women. Get it? Well, that's British humor. But if you're like most Americans you probably prefer Adam Sandler farting his way across a football field and hooking up with chicks that are way out of his league. Americans usually prefer this more in your face, crass brand of humor. My point is funny in England is different from funny in the US. The same goes for J-Horror. What the Japanese consider scary is very different from what Americans consider scary and it shows in this horror film. Japanese horror is generally slow (a little too slow sometimes), suspenseful and creepy. Ju-On is a creepy effing film. The movie has almost no soundtrack. It is incredibly suspenseful and the pay-offs are pretty awesome, but I think that it was done better in the American version (cultural t

Inseminoid (1981) - Norman J. Warren

What can be said for mindless schlock pictures like this one. They were pumped out in droves during the eighties. Inseminoid !? give me a break! It sounds like some pre-pubescent teenage boys came up with the title. On the plus side the movie isn't horrible to look at and it has a decent amount of gore. If you can separate yourself from the political incorrectness, then you might have a perfectly decent Sci-Fi Monster Feature.  A research team exploring caves on Jupiter accidentally awakens an ancient alien that rapes and impregnates one of the team members. She suffers from terrible shock and trauma, leading to a complete mental breakdown as her pregnancy accelerates faster and faster. Feeling threatened she decides to kill anyone she deems a threat. Can the rest of the research team survive or will they all become victims of INSEMINOID! Apparently this movie had a million dollar budget. That's really shocking considering the outcome of the picture. The acting