Director: Graham Baker
Writers: David Seltzer, Andrew Birkin
Stars: Sam Neill, Rossano Brazzi, Don Gordon
Run Time: 1 Hour, 48 Minutes
Link:
Synopsis
In Chicago, an excavating machine recovers seven indestructible iron daggers. The workman sells them to a pawn shop, which eventually go up for auction. He passes them on to a priest, who takes them to Subiacco, Italy. It’s the same church where the burned priest lived in the first film.
We see a short film concerning famine, war, and mass destruction, called by some “Armageddon” all of which is being controlled by Thorn Industries. Damien hates the ad, he wants to see what Thorn Industries does. Damien tells his secretary, Harvey Dean, that he expects that soon the President will offer him the Ambassadorship to Great Britain. Damien has been in charge of the company for seven years, as prophesied. The new Christ child will be born in England, and he wants to be there to do battle.
The current American Ambassador gets stared at by a black dog and then walks to his building, goes up to his office, and call for a press conference. He rigs things up so when the reporters open the door, a shotgun will blow his head off. The photographers get some really fresh photos that afternoon. Suddenly, the President needs to appoint a new Ambassador… Damien accepts the position for two years, as he plans to run for Senate in two years. He also demands to be the chairman fo the UN Youth Council.
Meanwhile, a group of astronomers are watching a strange alignment of stars that have recently started moving more quickly. They are going to align over England on March 24th. That is to be the birth of the new Nazarene child. They must try to kill the antichrist before that birth and definitely before the child can be revealed.
Meanwhile, the seven monks arm themselves with the daggers and head out, each on their own mission to kill Damien. They know who Damien really is, and they plan to kill him with the daggers.
Harvey Dean introduces Kate Reynolds, a British reporter, to Damien. She wants to interview him. Damien and Kate go for a walk, and they overhear one of those sidewalk preachers, who is saying a lot of truth that Damien doesn’t want to know. One of the monks is following Damien. The priests decide to kill Damien during the TV interview. The priest walks way out on a catwalk, falls, and burns to death in front of everyone. Damien sees the dagger and knows what’s up. He then makes a long prayer/monologue just so we can see that he really is evil.
The surviving monks and astronomers watch as the three stars converge. Damien wakes up as it happens. The next morning, Damien tells Harvey that the Nazarene was born last night. He plans to hunt down the child. He sees one of the priests outside and follows him all the wayback to the monastery. Two other priests see Damien and stab him to death, but it was an illusion; they stabbed the old priest. These two priests crawl into some kind of dungeon and can’t get out again– ever. Damien has found four of the daggers, and he wants to kill all children born on that day. All of them. Harvey’s son was born just ten minutes before that date.
There’s a fox hunt, and one of the priests has set a trap for Damien. He uses a second fox to split Damien from the crowd, and then they trap Damien on a bridge. Damien spooks the horse the man is on, and he is thrown off the bridge. He then orders dozens of hunting dogs to kill the second assassin. Now there’s only one dagger left.
He then goes to some kind of large amphitheater where all his followers, hundreds of them, are waiting for a speech. He orders them to find and slay the Nazarene. Harvey calls various people to arrange to murder all the babies from March 24th. Babies all over town start dying with a little help from his friends.
Father DiCarlo, the final priest, contacts Kate. He tells her everything, and even includes the babies’ birth certificates. Kate’s son starts following DiCarlo and reporting to Damien. Harvey’s wife reads his papers and learns what he’s been doing to the babies. The priest told her everything. Damien and Kate have sex.
Damien specifically orders Harvey to kill his own child. Harvey rushes home, telling his wife to start packing; he wants to make a run for it. Instead, Barbara hits him in the face with an iron, killing him… after killing the baby.
DiCarlo lures Damien to an old church and accidentally stabs Kate’s son. Kate gets angry and stabs Damien with the magic dagger. He staggers around a bit and then dies.
Commentary
Damien’s evil monologue in his altar room is pretty cool, but it’s also a little hokey. His later speech to the crowd is way over-the-top and way too hammy.
It’s a little draggy in the middle; Damien spends too much time reacting to the murderous priests, and he doesn’t actual do very much until it’s time to kill the babies, and even then, he orders that to be done. It’s ridiculously obvious that Harvey is lying about the birthdate of his child, and that makes it obvious that a betray of some sort is heading Damien’s way.
The other two films make it clear that it takes all seven daggers to kill Damien, yet Kate only uses one here. Still, it clearly looks like Damien has died here. It took ten years to make a sequel, so we’ll see…