fedor8 A couple of Italian left-wingers saw "The Omen", wet their pants, and then did a re-hash with their own uniquely moronic political twist to it.35 years later, and there's still no "nuclear holocaust". Those Marxists and their prophecies. The movie even mention "going back to nature (i.e. caves)", so the moronic influence of the hippie "culture" is to be seen in this 1977 horror flick as a sort of added bonus (for filmic anthropologists). The makers of this little turd must be feeling rather silly now, all those years later. Their prophecies of doom and gloom relating to nuclear power having not quite materialized the way they'd "predicted" and - of course above all else – as they had hoped. It is easy to tell, without even knowing the year, that this silly Italian flick was made in the late 70s, at the height of the left-wing's anti-nuclear-power rabble-rousing panic-inducing propagandist paranoia. The first 15 minutes or so are far more concerned with establishing the producers' political agenda (with an idealistic anti-power-plant speech being dished out every 3 minutes) than to get on with all manner of things horroric. Though once they do, it's just as much claptrap as you'd expect from an Italian horror film.Kirk Douglas, playing an intelligent, enterprising, hard-working Capitalist who recognizes the large potential that nuclear energy has, is swiftly equalized to Satan. After all, aren't all scientific-minded, reasonable entrepreneurs demons? The right-wing is merely the tool of the Devil, as we all know – and this coming from the atheistic Left. (Marxists using the apocalypse even to make their dogma felt, they will stop at nothing, the hypocrites). A little later it's his son who assumes the role of Satan while Kirk tries to save the world. Speaking of fathers and sons, could this be the movie that inspired Michael Douglas to do his own idiotic anti-nuclear-power propaganda movie ("The China Syndrome")? Like father like son. Michael isn't blond but Kirk's son here, Angel, is. Angel? Couldn't they have made it more obvious?Even sillier, they try to cheat the viewer into believing that the unborn infant is the Devil. Agostina Belli (looking amazing) appears out of nowhere, disappears just as easily, and inexplicably refuses to stroll toward a church with her boyfriend Granpa Douglas, suddenly starting to get all panicky. You'd think that more than qualifies her as a demon's right-hand-woman? Nope. You are allowed to mislead the viewers, but you can't just blatantly lie to them. Although to be fair, this movie had shot itself in the foot so often by the time she gets pregnant that one more piece of utter nonsense made no difference at that point. This dumb film had lost me already in the first few minutes.Plenty of hogwash there is in that mind-blowingly dumb finale and the legendarily goofy last scene. Kirk, presumed dead, moves into the desert with his trophy wife and newborn child, while memories of the idealistic chants of rabid, dimwitted left-wing protesters swerve about in his head. So why the desert? Is his plan to avoid the nuclear catastrophe because sand makes for effective cover against radiation? Or perhaps he intended to use all those kids playing around in the dunes to attack Satan and his 21 disciples once the building of the plant started, only a few miles away? The less said about all that malarkey going on in the loony bin, the better. Kirk wrestling insane people, that's just about as cheesy as it gets.Douglas keeps telling politicians that his soon-to-be-built nuclear power plant "will bring prosperity to the whole Third World". Must be a mighty magical power plant that will feed, clothe, employ and solve all the problems of over a billion people all over the world. Bombastic promises in a dimwitted script. You can tell an uneducated, uninformed putz wrote it.Douglas loses his power-plant contract because of an unfavourable election result in a mid-East country. What country from that region had free elections in the 70s, that's what I'd like to know. And what do Douglas and the sexy mysterious woman do right after they'd witnessed a helicopterish decapitation of a military dictator (sorry, a democratically elected Gaddafi impersonator)? They do what any other couple would do after such a bloody traumatic experience: cheerfully drive to the woods for a little picnic where they pat a cute deer and have a few sandwiches. This movie has to be seen to be believed.Douglas gets involved with a complete stranger in spite of her bizarrely appearing at the oddest of moments. Does he ever question her? No. And when she needs to get her demon seed aborted (which it turns out isn't a demon seen coz the director blatantly lied to his audience), guess who comes in to the rescue? The Catholic Church. Yes, the Vatican is sanctioning abortions: a comical little detail which I'm sure must have eluded the writer of this amazingly dumb turkey. This must rank among Kirk Douglas's top 3 filmic embarrassments.No, I can't think of any dumber movie he's ever done. This one proudly claims the top spot.

MARIO GAUCI There's no question about it: Italian film-makers used to make the most enjoyable crap – and this one is a prime example. Whenever a Hollywood movie became a runaway box office success, the Italians would waste no time in making their own carbon copy of it and, in this field, director Alberto De Martino was one of the top "go to" guys in the country; having recently made his own "pasta" versions of THE GODFATHER (1972) and THE EXORCIST (1973) – in THE COUNSELLOR (1973) and THE ANTICHRIST (1974) respectively – it was natural for him to be entrusted with concocting an Italianized clone of THE OMEN (1976). As it happens, this was an Italo-British co-production (as that impressively star-studded cast can attest) and the end result is, as I said, far more enjoyable than a half-arsed imitation has any right to be.The film's ageing American star, Kirk Douglas (in the first of 4 horror/sci-fi outings he did in quick succession – the others being Brian De Palma's disappointing THE FURY [1978], the maligned-but-fair SATURN 3 [1980] and THE FINAL COUNTDOWN [1980], which I haven't watched in ages), does have one up on Gregory Peck from THE OMEN in that he gets to share a nude love scene with leading lady Agostina Belli! The rest of the cast, unsurprisingly, is a mix of established Brits and Italians: Geoffrey Keen, Alexander Knox (as the requisite professor who unravels the diabolical scheme and who's given a memorably subtle death scene), Virginia McKenna (like in the subsequent BLOOD LINK [1982], also from De Martino, she's killed off during the opening scenes!), Anthony Quayle, Simon Ward (effectively cast as a cold-blooded Antichrist), as well as Adolfo Celi and Romolo Valli (playing the equally indispensable and ill-fated priest).The plot comes up with an ingenious modernization of the Apocalypse prophecies, illustrating a plausible analogy between mythical and modern monsters. Among the film's most notable sequences is Douglas' surreal nightmare (in which he's stranded stark naked in the desert, witnesses the demons rising from the sea and is haunted by the presence of a religious fanatic in a Diabolik-like outfit!) and one where a Middle Eastern political leader – opposed to industrial progress – gets the top of his head chopped off by a helicopter blade (thus anticipating the more celebrated moment in George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD [1978]). Once again, Ennio Morricone's score may sound overly-familiar (given that he composed THE ANTICHRIST and also EXORCIST II – THE HERETIC [1977])…but there's no denying that it serves the taut proceedings admirably.Ultimately, though, the film results in not being at all scary: for one thing, the Antichrist has no direct relation to the 'accidental' deaths of those who stand in his way; also, he's left pretty much to his own devices (with no diabolical helpers as in THE OMEN), yet, nobody ever seems to question his decisions. Besides, there's no explanation as to just how Ward became "the chosen" (one of the titles by which the film's also known, as seen in an alternate opening sequence included on the DivX copy I watched) – in THE OMEN, at least, it was a case of babies exchanged at birth! Other narrative flaws: why is the Agostina Belli character afraid of entering a church – considering that the child she's carrying turns out not to be the Antichrist after all (as Douglas himself had feared)?; the second scene in the psycho ward (with the religious fanatic going berserk and inciting his fellow inmates to kill Douglas) is baffling and somewhat redundant – since the latter has, by this time, become aware of Ward's true intentions! The film concludes rather abruptly with the fairly ludicrous – and pretentious – suggestion of a new 'Holy Family'; I much preferred the alternate ending also found on the (once again) problematic DivX copy I have, after missing out on this title more than I care to remember on Italian TV over the years: while admittedly conventional, at least, we're shown Douglas willing to keep up the fight the only way he knows how – through violence. Finally, I have to wonder what's holding up the film's release on DVD; it doesn't seem to be available in any region and, while no classic, it's eminently watchable – apart from being, definitely, a commercially viable item (especially for fans of "Euro-Cult")...

The_Void Italian filmmakers in the seventies weren't exactly slow when it came to ripping off successful films, and indeed it didn't take long for Alberto De Martino to deliver this obvious Omen rip-off just one year after the release of Richard Donner's successful film in 1976. The title suggests that the film will put something of a modern spin on the story, and indeed it has as in this tale of the Antichrist living among us humans, there is a nuclear power station at the centre. Kirk Douglas plays Robert Caine, an executive in charge of a Middle Eastern nuclear power plant. One of his main backers is his son, Angelo, but Angelo's reasons for wanting the power plant built are far more sinister than anything Robert would have expected. After a series of events, it becomes apparent to Robert that his son doesn't want the plant built to benefit mankind. In fact, he is the son of the Devil and his reasons for wanting the nuclear power plant completed is so he can carry out the Devil's work and use the plant to destroy all of mankind! It has to be said that this really isn't a good film. It rips off The Omen so much it's almost painful, and the rest of the movie is a complete mess. However, I can't completely condemn this movie as aside from the numerous plot issues, it's a lot of fun to watch and there always plenty of stuff going on. The Omen became infamous for its gory and inventive death scenes, and while the ones here may not be all that inventive - they're plenty gory and serve in adding to the fun. The only big actor in the film is Kirk Douglas. This can hardly be considered the classic actor's best work (not that I'm a big fan of most of his stuff), but somehow he manages to stay fairly credible despite the fact that the dialogue in this film is choppy at best, and it cant be easy to act well when you're working with actors that are less than brilliant. There's not a lot in this movie that will make you think, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It all boils down to the sort of conclusion you can expect, but it's good fun getting there and overall I'd give this Omen rip off a thumbs up.

Jonathon Dabell Holocaust 2000 represents two things. It is the director's attempt to cash in on the huge success of The Omen. It is also Kirk Douglas's attempt to get a wider, younger audience back on his side by flirting with the horror genre.The film is a mess, with Douglas playing the unsuspecting father whose business plans for a thermonuclear plant in the Middle East are enormously unpopular. His son, Simon Ward (a real Michael Caine lookalike in this film), is his closest ally when it comes to trying to build the plant, but what Douglas hasn't figured out is that his son is the embodiment of the AntiChrist, and that he only wants it built so that he can destroy mankind. Various people get killed (especially anyone who stands in the way of the plot) before Douglas figures it all out, but by then everyone thinks he is mad and he can't stop the completion of the plant. However, he does manage to escape and thus lives to fight another day.The film never pushes the audience out of their comfort zone. It poses no thought provoking questions, no ominous atmosphere, and no originality. The performances are surprisingly good considering that the material is so poor. A couple of the killings are well filmed, especially the colonel who is beheaded by a helicopter rotor blade, but some of them are a bit unconvincing. The film's one sex scene is quite erotic (surprisingly so considering the age gap between Douglas and his co-star Agostina Belli) but that hardly makes it worth watching. All in all, this is a missed opportunity.