OMEN Blu-Ray Box Set - $23.99 Amazon

[AndyDursin]

Good price in time for Halloween --

[Monterey Jack]

Isn't the packaging on that supposed to be ass?

Anyways, the first one is the only one worth owning.

[AndyDursin]

Packaging does kind of suck. I like the sequels in spite of their problems, mainly because of Jerry's scores and how they were shot. Even if they were half-baked, they're both hell of a lot better than almost any genre movie we get these days and as a fan I like the progression of the story through all three installments. The remake wasn't totally awful. And it doesn't include the horrific OMEN IV!

At that price I highly recommend it...lots of great extras on the first disc.

[Eric Paddon]

The first sequel was okay, I felt because it managed to pull the impossible of flowing seamlessly from the original despite the fact that the uncredited Leo McKern in his brief cameo at the beginning was the only cast member to appear in both films (why McKern was uncredited in both films is something that's never been explained). Omen III though is awful on all levels in terms of not having a coherent plot that fits with the original, *especially* with the fact that suddenly they are saying that grown-up Damien is living in the 80s, but that would mean the first film which is clearly contemporary to the 70s is taking place in the 50s! (plus the fact that they forgot in Omen III that Damien can only be killed if he is stabbed by all seven daggers, not just one. In fact this plot hold was at the heart of an Omen IV paperback novel written several years later).

The Harvey Bernhard commentary in Omen II is okay since he at least has an interviewer to press him along, though he doesn't get corrected when he keeps referring to Robert Foxworth as "Farnsworth". Graham Baker's Omen III commentary is a classic case of why an interviewer/expert is needed for a commentary track and why a cast member/director shouldn't go solo on these things.

[AndyDursin]

why McKern was uncredited in both films is something that's never been explained

I assume he was ashamed of those movies and didn't want to be credited. Of course he still wanted the check, lol.

I also found it amusing in DAMIEN OMEN II how he finds the "four faces of the Anti-Christ" on that wall, indicating two more sequels were to follow, but they made the next movie THE FINAL CONFLICT since the second picture didn't make as much as they anticipated at the box-office.

(plus the fact that they forgot in Omen III that Damien can only be killed if he is stabbed by all seven daggers, not just one. In fact this plot hold was at the heart of an Omen IV paperback novel written several years later).

That book was interesting, I wondered if it was based on a treatment for that proposed fourth installment that they nixed or just something the novelist came up with.

There's a lot of bad in THE FINAL CONFLICT but on some levels I like it more than the second film, which was more effective as a standalone work but conceptually was just a rerun of the first movie. It's like they tried something different on III and it didn't quite work, but the hunt sequence was terrific and Goldsmith's score is so good I can watch it in concert with the other two movies with no problem. I also find Neill's over the top performance amusing.

Graham Baker's Omen III commentary is a classic case of why an interviewer/expert is needed for a commentary track and why a cast member/director shouldn't go solo on these things.

As I've mentioned in my reviews before, that's one of the worst commentaries of all-time...just unbelievably boring. Bernhard's DAMIEN OMEN II track starts strong but petered out after a while as memory serves.