Omen II: Damien (1978)
Trivia
Jump to:
Spoilers (8)
Jonathan Scott-Taylor appeared in Bugsy Malone (1976) before this, with Jodie Foster and Scott Baio. After that he appeared in a string of movies, and then retired from acting altogether. Now he's an attorney.
There had been plans to film a third Omen movie starring Jonathan Scott-Taylor in 1979. However it was canceled after this film did less well than expected at the box office.
David Seltzer was approached to write the screenplay but refused as he had no interest in writing sequels. Years later, he commented that if he had written it, he would have set it the day after the first The Omen (1976) film ended, with Damien living in the White House.
William Holden was the original choice to star in the first film, The Omen (1976), but turned it down as he did not want to star in a picture about the devil. Gregory Peck was selected as his replacement. "The Omen" went on to become a huge hit and Holden made sure he did not turn down the part in this sequel.
Richard Donner was supposed to return as director, but he was busy with Superman (1978).
When Harvey Bernhard had finished writing the script and was given the green light to start the production, the first person he contacted was Jerry Goldsmith because of the composer's busy schedule. Bernhard also felt that Goldsmith's music for The Omen (1976) was the highest point of that movie, and that without Goldsmith's music this sequel would never be successful.
Iron Maiden's Steve Harris was inspired to make the song "The Number of the Beast" after getting a nightmare from watching Damien: Omen II.
Don Taylor replaced director Mike Hodges as a result of creative differences. However, the few scenes Hodges directed were kept, like the scenes at the factory and at the military school, and also the dinner where Aunt Marion shows her concern about Damien.
The film's budget was $5.2 million, twice that of The Omen (1976).
Joan Hart's murder by a vicious eye-pecking raven was an homage to Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963).
The disappointing box office returns from this movie, and the failure of Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and The Chosen (1977) signaled the end of Hollywood's 70s demon child fad. Though demon child movies still get made from time to time the fad would never again be at its zenith as it was in the 70s. The dominant trend, starting with the release of Halloween (1978), was now slasher movies.
The skating scene was filmed on Catfish Lake in Eagle River, Wisconsin using local children as the skaters. The local paramedics were standing by in case any of the children fell through the ice.
The Thorn Mansion is the Lake Forest Academy (formerly the Armour Estate) in Lake Forest, Illinois. All exteriors had to be shot in the back garden of the academy/estate because the school had erected a very modern structure in front of the old estate.
At 59 William Holden was only eight years younger than Sylvia Sidney who played Aunt Marion.
Lance Henriksen (Sergeant Neff) didn't like the final film at all, and he said it didn't help his career much either.
Much of the film takes place at Davidson Military Academy which was started by the fictitious Harlan Page Davidson. The appellation "David's Son" is frequently used in the Bible to denote Jesus Christ, Damien's polar opposite.
The scene that's supposed to take place in New York is still actually Chicago. It's filmed in Chicago, southeastern Wisconsin and Eagle River, Wisconsin, which is in the northern part of the state.
The cadets at the military academy were real students at St. John's Northwestern military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin.
Lance Henriksen (Sergeant Neff) did not get along with Don Taylor and found the shoot very miserable as a result. (He was hired by the original director Mike Hodges who got fired).
According to the novelization, the raven is actually Damien's subconscious. The murders it carries out are the actions of Damien's id.
Director Don Taylor was a former actor and had indeed acted alongside his good friend William Holden in Stalag 17 (1953).
The theme song is a very fast paced version of the Oscar winning "Ave Satani", the theme song from the original.
Leo McKern reprises his role as Carl Bugenhagen, the archaeologist and exorcist in The Omen (1976). He is the only actor that is in more than one film in the Omen series.
Lee Grant was blacklisted by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Unamerican Activities Committee and didn't work for years. Then according to her autobiography, "I Said Yes To Everything", she purposely took as many B-movie type jobs to get back into the swing of things, which is why this Academy-Award-winning actress accepted the Anne Thorn role in Damien Omen 2.
Damien's animal sidekick/helper in this movie is a raven. In The Omen (1976) and The Final Conflict (1981) it's a Rottweiler.
Damien doesn't seem to physically kill anyone in this movie. We see a series of bizarre accidents which kill off the devil's enemies, and this seems to be engineered by the Devil himself, or demonic forces, not Damien. Only at the ending, when the room at the museum blows up and Anne gets incinerated shouting "Damien!", and when Mark has his aneurism, do we suspect foul play.
Lee Grant's daughter Dinah Manoff was starring in the #1 movie in the country for the year when Damien: Omen II came out: Grease (1978).
"Davidson Military Academy" is really Northwestern Military and Naval Academy in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and has the same insignia. This school merged with St. John's Military Academy in 1995 to be St. John's Northwestern Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin.
The tagline for this movie was "The First One Was Only A Warning". That's what all the posters for the movie say. But the second one is only a warning too, and so is the third as Armageddon never actually comes in these movies.
Teddy, the bully who antogonizes Damien into using his telekinetic powers, is Damien's first victim. Up to that point all of the killing had been done by Damien's acolytes and the Devil himself. After that point it's mostly Damien.
This is the only Omen movie that takes place in the U.S.; The Omen (1976) and The Final Conflict (1981) both take place in London.
Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, William Holden and Lee Grant have all been nominated for Oscars; only Lee Remick hasn't won one.
Damien never calls Richard "Uncle Richard" or Ann "Aunt Ann". The only one who gets an Aunt or Uncle moniker is Aunt Marion.
Sylvia Sidney, who played Aunt Marion, outlived William Holden by almost 20 years: Holden died in 1981, shortly after this movie came out, from a tragic accident where he tripped and hit his head on an end table in his room. (Rumor has it his heavy drinking contributed to his accident and early death). Conversely, Silvia Sydney died in 1999 from natural causes.
Mike Hodges the original director was fired; he was replaced by Don Taylor.
Lance Henriksen (Sergeant Neff) played another sergeant in The Terminator (1984), Sergeant Half Vukovich, and he played an android that was in the military as well in Aliens (1986), Bishop.
Damien Omen 2 is a bit of an Avengers reunion: Ian Hendry plays Michael, Bugenhagen's colleague that he shows Yggail's wall to at the beginning. He was on the British 1960s TV series The Avengers, along with fellow Damien Omen cast member Elizabeth Shepherd (Joan Hart). Where Elizabeth Shepherd played Emma Peel on The Avengers, Ian Hendry played David Keel.
Damien "breaks the fourth wall" and smiles viciously at the audience in the last shot just like he does in the last shot of the first movie.
The control panels at the chemical plant that Damien and his classmates visit looks exactly like a smaller version of the nuclear power plant room in the movie, The China Syndrome.
The first person to be signed to the project was Composer Jerry Goldsmith, who had won the Academy Award for his score for the first time. It was crucial to Producer Harvey Bernhard that he would
When Mike Hodges was the director of the film, his attitude was pretty much "strictly business" towards the cast and crew, which may have led to his dismissal by Producer Harvey Bernhard who then hired Don Taylor and the production shut down for about a week so Taylor could get up to speed. Once on set, the atmosphere was a lot more relaxed and energetic with Taylor being loose and funny with the cast and crew to keep things lighter.
According to Lee Grant, she and William Holden were very pleasant and friendly throughout the shoot with Grant having a secret crush on him as they got closer personally. Holden then began to distance himself from her mainly because it added great tension towards the finale of the film and its shocking ending.
For the hockey scenes on the frozen lake, none of the actors really knew how to skate and had to pretty much act as if they knew how to skate with William Holden really taking a fall during his take and left in the film.
Damien in The Omen (1976) and this film is played by British actors; in The Final Conflict (1981) he's played by an actor from New Zealand.
Allan Arbus, who plays one of the Thorn Industry employees who gets asphyxiated by fumes at the plant, was also the recurring character Sidney Friedman on MASH when this film was released ( 1978).
Lee Grant followed this up with Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981), which she describes as "awful".
Damien has an English accent in The Omen (1976) and Omen II: Damien (1978), but not part The Final Conflict (1981), which also takes place in London ironically enough.
Spoilers
When it's Mark's birthday and he cuts the cake he cuts into the lake on the birthday cake which foreshadows what happens to Bill in the next scene when he drowns in a frozen lake. Not really, since the lake covers most of the top of the cake. With the size of it on the cake, it was highly likely that it would be the first place someone would cut when cutting the cake.
After setting The Field Museum (not Museum of Science and Industry) ablaze, killing his aunt, Damien turns and marches back to the limousine and smiles maliciously and knowingly at the chauffeur, Murray. This is the same limo driver we saw Damien and Mark palling around with at the beginning, trading jokes about Aunt Marion, asking him for cigarettes, etc.
Damien is protected and mentored by several people in the film including both Paul and Sergeant Neff, who push him towards his comeuppance into power with the final revelation being Damien's own Aunt Ann being the surprising one killing her own husband in the process.
According to Lee Grant, she was shocked and did not know about her surprise turn of being Damien's disciple at the end of the film which was also a shock to the late William Holden as well.
While The Omen (1976) was pretty discreet in terms of gore, trying to separate itself from and distinguish itself from The Exorcist (1973), part 2 is much gorier, featuring the bloody Joan Hart eye pecking scene and Meshach Taylor's guillotine by elevator cable.
Meshach Taylor, Anthony from Designing Women, plays one of the doctors in this movie. He plays Dr. Kane, the doctor who discovers Damien has jackal blood and cells in his body, and then tries to investigate this only to get sliced in half literally by a demonically manipulated runaway elevator cable.
