Damien: Omen II

Damien: Omen II
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Don Taylor Uncredited: Mike Hodges
Produced by	Harvey Bernhard
Screenplay by	Stanley Mann Mike Hodges
Story by	Harvey Bernhard
Based on	characters created by David Seltzer
Starring	William Holden Lee Grant Jonathan Scott-Taylor
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography	Bill Butler Gilbert Taylor (Israel sequences)
Edited by	Robert Brown
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	June 9, 1978 (1978-06-09)
Running time	107 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$6.8 million
Box office	$26,518,355

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Damien: Omen II is a 1978 American supernatural horror film directed by Don Taylor, starring William Holden, Lee Grant, and Jonathan Scott-Taylor. The film was the second installment in The Omen series, set seven years after the first film, and was followed by a third installment, Omen III: The Final Conflict, in 1981.

This was Lew Ayres' final film role and the film debut of Meshach Taylor. The official tagline of the film is "The First Time Was Only a Warning." Leo McKern reprises his role as Carl Bugenhagen from the original film; he is the only cast member of the series to appear in more than one installment.

A week after the burial of Robert and Katherine Thorn, archaeologist Carl Bugenhagen (Leo McKern) learns of the survival of their adopted son Damien. Confiding to his friend Michael Morgan (Ian Hendry) that Damien is the Antichrist, Bugenhagen attempts to convince him to give Damien's guardian a box containing the means to kill Damien. As Morgan is unconvinced, Bugenhagen takes him to some local ruins to see the mural of Yigael's Wall, which was said to have been drawn by one who saw the Devil and had visions of the Antichrist as he would appear from birth to death. Though Morgan believes him upon seeing an ancient depiction of the Antichrist with Damien's face, both he and Bugenhagen are buried alive as the tunnel collapses on them.

Seven years later, the 12-year old Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) is living with his uncle, industrialist Richard Thorn (William Holden) and his wife, Ann (Lee Grant). Damien gets along well with his cousin Mark (Lucas Donat), Richard's son from his first marriage, with whom he is enrolled in a military academy. However, Damien is despised by Richard's aunt, Marion (Sylvia Sidney), who sees him as a bad influence on Mark. Though Marion threatens to cut Richard out of her will if he does not separate the two boys, she dies of a heart attack while visited by a raven in the dead of night. Soon after, through his friend and curator of the Thorn Museum, Dr. Charles Warren (Nicholas Pryor), Richard is introduced to journalist Joan Hart (Elizabeth Shephard). Hart was a colleague of Keith Jennings, the journalist decapitated seven years previously after befriending Robert Thorn to investigate the circumstances surrounding Damien's birth and adoption by the Thorns. Hart has pieced together the circumstances of Jennings' death after seeing Yigael's Wall. Though no one believes her, Joan believes she may have been mistaken about Damien until she sees his face at his school and drives off in a panic. On the road, after her car's engine mysteriously dies, Joan is attacked by the raven as it pecks out her eyes and then watches her get run over by a passing truck.