*SPOILERS*
I keep saying non-secular when I mean secular so I'm going to have to be especially careful when talking about this final in the trilogy which has been shown on telly for consecutive weekends on the graveyard shift. The other two were made in the seventies thus bestowing coolness upon them. At the start of the film Damien is sitting in a viewing theatre and is somewhat miffed. "Trite, cliched, inane" he complains. But enough about 'The Final Conflict' Damien, what about the advert you just watched? The eighties are truly upon us and are apocalyptic. Poor Sam Neill was described as a 'hacktor' after appearing in this but just how do you go about playing the Anti-Christ? Dracula disappears for most of Bram Stoker's novel to great effect and the best move would have been to do a 'Dead Zone' type plot with one man having visions after shaking his hand and trying to off him for the duration with Damien very much in the background. Instead, Neill goes for a hilarious pantomime turn of twitches, eyeball rolling, furtive glances and failed charm. All that is missing are the cape, mustache and tall black hat. His speech is mannered. "The daggers are the only thing on EARTH...(pause)...that can kill me." DAN-DAN! Not the only thing, script starvation is another. This portentousness extends to the incomprehensible Father DeCarlo. "The mark, 66.....(long pause)...6!" Did he forget? It's not like a long zip code, is it? What you also don't want to do is hire a British tv director (Graham Baker) to direct a genre he is unfamiliar with. The action mostly revolves around people coming in and going out through doors and the set-ups are flat. Hey, Graham, horror films have lightening, don't they? So bung them in too in a highly risible manner, knocking a man off his feet in Keystone Cops fashion. Another problem is Jerry Goldsmith's score which makes an old style Ben Hur epic sound like a mere tap on the door. It's deafening appearances during the staid proceedings is laughably incongruous.
The devil changes his modus operandi in this film. Why the change from crow to dog? Well, in a recent London stand up comedy act, a comedian found that the duck he hired cost £250 a day, £100 more than the Equity standard actor's pay for a WEEKS work. So he hired an actor in a duck's costume, I kid you not. So the change to a dog is not just satanic, it's smart. This dog is unusual though, it's point of view shot when stalking the American Ambassador in Hyde Park appears to be floating at least a foot off the ground and doesn't disturb twigs. Damien later explains that the breed once marched with the imperial Roman army. Must have been a sight, a load of soldiers with a row of dogs floating in the air. Keeps the sand off their paws, I guess. But a man's best friend is not his dog but his personal secretary. Harvey Dean (for it is he) reminds me of the hilariously inept personal secretary played by Barry Foster in the 'Sweeney!' Film, only going one better and adding baby killing to his CV. The none-too-bright Dean happily twitters on to Damien about family life seemingly unaware, unlike the rest of us, that the devil has a propensity towards nihilism. But unlike Barry Foster, Dean's assassins are competent and it's the God Squad's (on a sacred mission) that are inept. And don't say they're not used to that sort of thing, have you forgotten the Spanish Inquisition? Anyway, one of DeCarlo's priests goes to kill Damien in a tv studio. From, ahem, a gantry. What was he planning to do, jump down, break both his legs then crawl over to Damien and try and stab his toes? Embarrassed by this incompetence, Father DeCarlo tells the other priests that this time they're going to plan things down to the finest detail. So two of them wait in some ruins while another priest lures Damien to his demise. Sadly they get stuck in a hole, doomed to starvation. But hang on, doesn't planning down to the finest detail entail everyone knowing where they were heading thus ensuring a search party? But it's only me who thinks of these little things, such as Damien moaning to Dean that Christians like sticking to the letter of their prophecies. But do they? Killing Damien on consecrated ground and crucifying him with all seven daggers seems to have gone out of the window. Also 'Revelations' states that Christ will do battle with the Anti-Christ but he doesn't. Probably because he's a little short. In fact, he's a baby, a salient point lost on our Damien who stalks through an Abbey yelling, "come out and face me, Nazarene!" Er, Damien, he's a baby. He can't even walk yet. Do you expect one of the priests to run out and try and nut you with him? Instead, Damien is stabbed in the back by a journalist. Honestly, as the son of Satan he really should have seen THAT one coming.
This film bludgeons you with pious scriptures and pompous choirs but is hypocritically exploitative. The series was silly but tapped into superstitions supposedly forgotten in this secular (yes, made it!) age, so it's a shame they went for easy sleazy rather than something thoughtful. What if, as a recent song writer posed, you had to believe in Jesus and the saints? If it was all true? The theological, moral and historical implications would have made for some philosophically interesting films. 'The Final Conflict' throws away the really big philosophical question of history, "what is evil?" Damien says that true evil is as pure as innocence and that people confuse it with their own lusts and perversions. The trouble is Damien has a statue of Christ crucified the wrong way to a cross and also sodomises his girlfriend Kate Reynolds telling her, "birth is pain, life is pain, beauty is pain", which suggests he's a bit confused as well. But Satan, being the father of lies, is bound to produce a hypocrite. The other problem with this film is Damien isn't really, well, evil enough. He's big on hyperbole: "Grandeur of melancholy, divinity of loneliness, God doesn't lift a finger to do any housework" etc, but he's only managed the death of a few relatives himself. What's shocking about being the head of a multi-national corporation nowadays? Thorn produces everything from Nuclear weapons to Soya Beans, but if you've ever been to supper at my mother-in-laws you'll know which is more lethal. Damien involves himself with a coup in Botswana to gain financially for Thorn industries and set himself favourably up with the president, while blithely missing the fact that with a bit more effort he could have stirred some real trouble up in the middle East between two of the worlds oldest religions, thus precipitating armageddon well ahead of schedule. It does at least prove however, that although the devil may have all the best tunes, don't hold your breath for the CD; he's a real slacker. In fact, the most shocking moments in the whole film come when Kate Reynolds (a BBC journalist, no less!) Seems to approve of her son fox hunting and being traditionally blooded and also let's a complete stranger into her house late at night just because he tells her he's a priest. A sobering thought for our non-secular times. Oh, ****!
I keep saying non-secular when I mean secular so I'm going to have to be especially careful when talking about this final in the trilogy which has been shown on telly for consecutive weekends on the graveyard shift. The other two were made in the seventies thus bestowing coolness upon them. At the start of the film Damien is sitting in a viewing theatre and is somewhat miffed. "Trite, cliched, inane" he complains. But enough about 'The Final Conflict' Damien, what about the advert you just watched? The eighties are truly upon us and are apocalyptic. Poor Sam Neill was described as a 'hacktor' after appearing in this but just how do you go about playing the Anti-Christ? Dracula disappears for most of Bram Stoker's novel to great effect and the best move would have been to do a 'Dead Zone' type plot with one man having visions after shaking his hand and trying to off him for the duration with Damien very much in the background. Instead, Neill goes for a hilarious pantomime turn of twitches, eyeball rolling, furtive glances and failed charm. All that is missing are the cape, mustache and tall black hat. His speech is mannered. "The daggers are the only thing on EARTH...(pause)...that can kill me." DAN-DAN! Not the only thing, script starvation is another. This portentousness extends to the incomprehensible Father DeCarlo. "The mark, 66.....(long pause)...6!" Did he forget? It's not like a long zip code, is it? What you also don't want to do is hire a British tv director (Graham Baker) to direct a genre he is unfamiliar with. The action mostly revolves around people coming in and going out through doors and the set-ups are flat. Hey, Graham, horror films have lightening, don't they? So bung them in too in a highly risible manner, knocking a man off his feet in Keystone Cops fashion. Another problem is Jerry Goldsmith's score which makes an old style Ben Hur epic sound like a mere tap on the door. It's deafening appearances during the staid proceedings is laughably incongruous.
The devil changes his modus operandi in this film. Why the change from crow to dog? Well, in a recent London stand up comedy act, a comedian found that the duck he hired cost £250 a day, £100 more than the Equity standard actor's pay for a WEEKS work. So he hired an actor in a duck's costume, I kid you not. So the change to a dog is not just satanic, it's smart. This dog is unusual though, it's point of view shot when stalking the American Ambassador in Hyde Park appears to be floating at least a foot off the ground and doesn't disturb twigs. Damien later explains that the breed once marched with the imperial Roman army. Must have been a sight, a load of soldiers with a row of dogs floating in the air. Keeps the sand off their paws, I guess. But a man's best friend is not his dog but his personal secretary. Harvey Dean (for it is he) reminds me of the hilariously inept personal secretary played by Barry Foster in the 'Sweeney!' Film, only going one better and adding baby killing to his CV. The none-too-bright Dean happily twitters on to Damien about family life seemingly unaware, unlike the rest of us, that the devil has a propensity towards nihilism. But unlike Barry Foster, Dean's assassins are competent and it's the God Squad's (on a sacred mission) that are inept. And don't say they're not used to that sort of thing, have you forgotten the Spanish Inquisition? Anyway, one of DeCarlo's priests goes to kill Damien in a tv studio. From, ahem, a gantry. What was he planning to do, jump down, break both his legs then crawl over to Damien and try and stab his toes? Embarrassed by this incompetence, Father DeCarlo tells the other priests that this time they're going to plan things down to the finest detail. So two of them wait in some ruins while another priest lures Damien to his demise. Sadly they get stuck in a hole, doomed to starvation. But hang on, doesn't planning down to the finest detail entail everyone knowing where they were heading thus ensuring a search party? But it's only me who thinks of these little things, such as Damien moaning to Dean that Christians like sticking to the letter of their prophecies. But do they? Killing Damien on consecrated ground and crucifying him with all seven daggers seems to have gone out of the window. Also 'Revelations' states that Christ will do battle with the Anti-Christ but he doesn't. Probably because he's a little short. In fact, he's a baby, a salient point lost on our Damien who stalks through an Abbey yelling, "come out and face me, Nazarene!" Er, Damien, he's a baby. He can't even walk yet. Do you expect one of the priests to run out and try and nut you with him? Instead, Damien is stabbed in the back by a journalist. Honestly, as the son of Satan he really should have seen THAT one coming.
This film bludgeons you with pious scriptures and pompous choirs but is hypocritically exploitative. The series was silly but tapped into superstitions supposedly forgotten in this secular (yes, made it!) age, so it's a shame they went for easy sleazy rather than something thoughtful. What if, as a recent song writer posed, you had to believe in Jesus and the saints? If it was all true? The theological, moral and historical implications would have made for some philosophically interesting films. 'The Final Conflict' throws away the really big philosophical question of history, "what is evil?" Damien says that true evil is as pure as innocence and that people confuse it with their own lusts and perversions. The trouble is Damien has a statue of Christ crucified the wrong way to a cross and also sodomises his girlfriend Kate Reynolds telling her, "birth is pain, life is pain, beauty is pain", which suggests he's a bit confused as well. But Satan, being the father of lies, is bound to produce a hypocrite. The other problem with this film is Damien isn't really, well, evil enough. He's big on hyperbole: "Grandeur of melancholy, divinity of loneliness, God doesn't lift a finger to do any housework" etc, but he's only managed the death of a few relatives himself. What's shocking about being the head of a multi-national corporation nowadays? Thorn produces everything from Nuclear weapons to Soya Beans, but if you've ever been to supper at my mother-in-laws you'll know which is more lethal. Damien involves himself with a coup in Botswana to gain financially for Thorn industries and set himself favourably up with the president, while blithely missing the fact that with a bit more effort he could have stirred some real trouble up in the middle East between two of the worlds oldest religions, thus precipitating armageddon well ahead of schedule. It does at least prove however, that although the devil may have all the best tunes, don't hold your breath for the CD; he's a real slacker. In fact, the most shocking moments in the whole film come when Kate Reynolds (a BBC journalist, no less!) Seems to approve of her son fox hunting and being traditionally blooded and also let's a complete stranger into her house late at night just because he tells her he's a priest. A sobering thought for our non-secular times. Oh, ****!