Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

Director: Graham Baker

Writer: Andrew birkin

Composer: Jerry Goldsmith

Starring: Sam Neill, Rossano Brazzi, Don Gordon, Lisa Harrow, Barnaby Holm, Mason Adams, Robert Arden, Leueen Willoughby, Marc Boyle, Milos Kirek, Tommy Duggan, Louis Mahoney, Richard Oldfield, Tony Vogel, Hazel Court

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The power of evil is no longer in the hands of a child.

Plot: The now adult Antichrist plots to eliminate his future divine opponent while a cabal of monks plot to stop him.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Probably.

I really dig this franchise despite each film's flaw of pacing.  This third picture doesn't feel complete.  Maybe the writing was rushed.  The performances are fine although Sam Neill (in his debut starring in an American film) overdoes it when speaking to his mass of minions but he's otherwise great.  Jerry Goldsmith is back with a fantastic score and the best part of the film (as were his previous two scores).  If you ever listen to each of the three scores you'll notice a nice progression from one to the next as they get darker and bigger.  Outstanding work.  The kills in this are great and they even kill babies!  Even though you don't actually see the baby deaths, they're still very effective.  The one with the priest is badass.  Say, aren't these pooches adorable?

That's a great sequence, too.  There's a lot of good but the problems I have with it are that it's not grandiose enough (considering this is the third and final film in an epic good vs. evil trilogy) and the ending it incredibly weak.  Seriously weak.  It's anticlimactic almost in how small of a scale it's on.  SPOILERS FOR SATAN!!! YARRRRR!  I love that the kid dies and stays dead.  For a second there I thought he might be brought back to life.  Thank holy Satan for that one!  END OF SPOILERS!!! YARRRRR!!! The big orchestral and choral theme Goldsmith unleashes as Satan loses this round only adds to the pain of what could have been an exceptional finale.  I'm not saying there needed to be an effects-laden insane climax but what they delivered ends with a whimper.  I still dig the picture but I'll always think about what could have been.