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Film / Omen III: The Final Conflict

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Evil comes of age.

The second sequel to The Omen, released in 1981. Also known as simply The Final Conflict.

The Antichrist Damien Thorn (played by Sam Neill) is now an adult who tries to use his position as an influential politician to bring about Armageddon, while preventing the Second Coming of Christ, the only one who can stop him.


This film has examples of:

  • Accidental Murder: Damien uses his powers to convince Brother Paulo and Brother Martin that Brother Matteus is him, and they promptly assassinate Matteus.
  • All for Nothing: Damien assumes that Jesus will return as a baby again in a form of Reincarnation. This is completely wrong and all of his defenses against the rebirth are pointless.
  • Bittersweet Ending: In contrast to the Downer Endings of the previous films, it ends with DeCarlo and Jesus killing Damien for good. However, Peter is dead and many infants were murdered by Damien, to say nothing about the numerous lives he has taken in the previous films.
  • Buried Alive: Brother Paulo and Brother Martin are left trapped in an area they fled into while trying to escape the Hellhound. It's unclear if they survived or not (the hole is covered up instead of being filled in) but Damien takes advantage of the moment to take their daggers and leaves them struggling to get out.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Damien.
    Damien: Oh my Father, Lord of Silence, Supreme God of Desolation, though mankind reviles yet aches to embrace, strengthen my purpose to save the world from a second ordeal of Jesus Christ and his grubby mundane creed. Show man instead the raptures of Thy kingdom. Infuse in him the grandeur of melancholy, the divinity of loneliness, the purity of evil, the paradise of pain.
  • Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Damien Thorn is this to his stepfather and uncle in the first two films. While brothers Robert and Richard were straightforward good guys, Damien Thorn is a Villain Protagonist. In terms of casting, while the previous leads were played by veteran Academy Award-winning screen legends Gregory Peck and William Holden, Sam Neill, Damien's actor, was a then-unknown when he was cast.
  • The Corruptor: Damien brainwashing Kate's son Peter into becoming his apostle. Kate is understandably horrified at how her son is being groomed by the son of the Devil.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Damien, before being appointed as ambassador.
  • Corrupt Politician: Damien, after being appointed ambassador.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: A lot actually, but two that stick out the most is the death of the one priest who is mauled by bloodhounds during a hunt and another priest who burns to death whilst trapped in melting plastic sheets. And what makes it worse is that the latter doesn't die quickly.
  • Defiant to the End: Damien's final words amount to this.
    Nazarene, you have won... nothing.
  • Dramatic Irony: Damien is completely wrong about the Book of Revelation despite being the Antichrist.
  • Driven to Suicide: Damien's predecessor as ambassador is induced to commit suicide by a demonic hellhound.
  • Eye Scream: Getting smacked in the face with an iron isn't good for your eyes.
  • Funny Background Event: When Damien is walking in the park with Kate, his personal hellhound can be seen playing fetch with Peter in the foreground. It seems to be very possessive of the stick.
  • Genre Blind: Neither Damien nor anyone aware of his plan had ever read the Bible all that much, otherwise they would had known that Jesus would not return to the world in the body of an infant, but in his full divine form.
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam: Harvey Dean refuses to kill his own son for Damien's sake and flees. Damien responds by having Harvey's wife spellbound to kill the child and Harvey.
  • Idiot Ball: Damien kills all the babies to make sure he gets the reborn child of Jesus. But Damien should be well aware the prophecy is Jesus will return as a divine adult because Damien reads the actual Bible and has one heck of a powerful backer who should know this as well. This information is certainly not obscure.
  • In the Back: How Damien dies thanks to the remaining Dagger of Megiddo.
  • Invincible Villain: Actually no. While the Daggers of Megiddo were always established to be able to kill Damien, he has always managed to escape any assassination attempts. In this film, it would seem he's Not So Invincible After All.
  • Lousy Lovers Are Losers: Damien is as handsome and charming as you might expect a devil to be, but once he actually gets Kate into bed, he (anally?) rapes her and leaves her covered with bites and scratch marks. Not because he wanted to hurt her per se, but because it seems he can't even do something as simple as successfully have sex without causing pain.
  • Motive Rant: Damien gives one to a statue of Jesus on the Cross about how he is a weak charlatan who gives humanity false hope. The speech then goes into a Motive Rant about Damien avenging his father's exile from Heaven.
  • Near-Villain Victory: Unlike the previous films where he wins, Damien only comes close to winning this time.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Herod: Damien tries to prevent the second coming of Christ by killing all male British children born during the herald of his return. Not only is this pointless, since Jesus is reborn in his powerful adult form, but also the murderous strike convinces Kate of his real identity, which leads to her stabbing him with the only weapon that could kill him.
  • Prophecy Twist: Damien attempts to stop the second coming of Christ by killing any male children born in the U.K. during the sign of his imminent return. This is to prevent "the beast's" defeat by "the lamb" as predicted in Revelation before he's even had a chance to face him. Unfortunately for the forces of darkness, Jesus returns not as a mortal child but rather in his all-powerful divine form and proceeds to strike Damien down personally-which is what the Book of Revelation said would happen.
  • Retcon: The fashions, cars, et cetera make it quite clear The Omen (1976) was supposed to be set around the time of its release in the mid-70s. When Damien: Omen II came out two years later with Damien seven or so years older, it seemed like a case of 20 Minutes into the Future. But The Final Conflict is explicitly set in 1982 with a 32-year-old Damien, retroactively pushing the events of the original film back to the mid-1950s and Damien to the early 1960s, neither of which fits the evidence in the earlier films at all.
  • Rube Goldberg Hates Your Guts: The original ambassador could have easily been induced to commit suicide by shooting himself or jumping from a window. Instead he rigs up an elaborate booby trap that will blast a gun into his face when someone opens the door.
  • Screw Destiny: Damien's motivation is to prevent his prophesied defeat at the hands of Jesus during the Second Coming.
  • Second Coming: When Damien Thorn realizes that the Second Coming is imminent and thus his arch-enemy will be reborn, he orders his cult to kill every baby boy born in U.K. on March 24th between midnight and 6 am.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: The man who buys the daggers at an auction in the opening montage—and after reading up on them and realizing their significance, mails them to De Carlo's monastery—has just a minute of screentime.
  • Stopped Numbering Sequels: Originally released as The Final Conflict, without a number OR the franchise title! While modern home video releases have Omen III on the box, the original title card is still shown in the movie itself.
    • Possibly because "Omen" is something of an Artifact Title at this point; the first movie had Jennings' photos that foreshadowed how several characters died, the second movie had Yigael's Wall that showed the faces of the Antichrist - Damien's face - in various stages of his life. There are no real omens in this movie.
  • Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Father Spiletto, last seen in the first film alive, albeit severely burnt and disfigured, near catatonic, and mute, is mentioned to have passed away some time prior to the film.
  • They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Damien's followers. As we see during his speech, they come from all walks of life: a pair of schoolboys, a priest, a nurse, boy scouts... you get the idea.
  • Unwilling Suspension: Happens to the one of the monks, who is then wrapped in plastic and is caught on fire.
  • Villain Ball: Damien seemed unstoppable and indestructible in the first two films, but here? If he had simply taken twenty minutes or so to read The Book of Revelation, he might have seen the rather large flaw in his plan, which is why he's finally taken down.
  • Villain Protagonist: Damien Thorn, due to his actor receiving top billing.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Besides the slaughtering of infants that he commanded, Damien uses Peter as a shield to protect himself from being stabbed.

Alternative Title(s): The Final Conflict

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