The Final Conflict: Omen 3 (1981)

The third film in the Omen trilogy and the supposed last one (they made a 4th one for TV), it's a film that I just never got around to watching after all this time.  The Omen was a classic and really The Omen 2 was surprisingly decent as well.  Unlike many horror franchises which often got worse as they went along, the Omen series kept up a fairly consistent level of quality.  Sam Neill takes on the role of the grown up Damien in this "final" entry of the series.

After careful consideration, I've decided not to endorse your park

The timeline of the series seems a bit sketchy with how quickly Damien grew up, but anyways we have a full adult Damien who is all powerful and has a small army of devotees who know he is the anti-christ.  He's built himself up in the business world as well as getting a position in the US Government all while making his power plays along the way.  I love Sam Neill but maybe he wasn't exactly right to play Damien who always had such a creepy vibe to him.  The actor they got to play the young teen Damien in part 2 was great and could be super creepy when he needed to. While Sam Neill seems a bit too smooth at first, he does get more sinister with the role as the movie progresses.

The main focus of this third installment is the discovery of the birth of the 2nd coming of Christ, which leads Damien on a crusade to hunt down the child who could be his undoing.  Along the way he battles various cult like church followers who are also attempting to stop Damien using the sacred daggers of megiddo introduced in the previous films.  Lot of folks get killed, lot of babies murdered, operatic chanting, good times. 

Feel bad for the cleaning lady

As with the previous films, Damien is surrounded with a dark aura of some kind that leads people to die in horrible ways and strange accidents.  You get some grisly Final Destination type of deaths here which can be fun even though some are pretty convoluted.  Damien may have powers shown at times, but throughout the series folks just seem to randomly get possessed and die under strange circumstances as well.  Besides the typical accidents and deaths of those trying to stop Damien, you now have an army of his followers going around the country killing new born babies, which the movie for the most part avoids actually showing at least.  We also have Damien being evil, dealing in business and politics with ever growing menace.  Damien's cool manner begins to even crack as the film builds up to the conclusion and the dawning of the title's coming "Final Conflict".

The Omen 3 is a fairly good movie which to me just is let down by how poorly it ends.  For a finale of this trilogy, it all just kinda comes to an end with a whimper.  The whole final act kind of feels non existent and it is kind of predictable in whats going to happen.  Even if you see an ending coming, it can still be well executed but the movie just kinda ends in such a low key way.  The whole thing is pretty anti-climatic and really seemed like it should have been something epic.  It's an alright movie but the biggest issue is the lack of the actual final conflict!

You came to the wrong neighborhood....