Damien - Omen II (1978)
Directed by Don Taylor
No — Damien - Omen II is not woke, scoring 12 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
Sequels are, by nature, conservative creatures, and this one is no exception.
Consciousness Markers
The plot involves Damien plotting to seize control of the Thorn family's 'business empire,' which is a mild, standard critique of unchecked corporate power, but not a modern socio-economic critique.
The film features a standard 1970s Hollywood cast and focuses entirely on a wealthy, powerful, and inherently evil family, showing no progressive representation.
There are no LGBTQ+ themes, characters, or subtext present in the narrative or character development.
The female characters are either victims of the male power structure or complicit in the occult, offering no modern feminist critique or agenda.
The film is set in the United States and focuses on occult themes, showing no commentary on race or systemic inequality.
Environmental concerns are incidental (factory fumes, frozen lakes) and are not treated as a thematic 'Climate Crusade.'
There are no themes related to body acceptance or challenging conventional beauty standards.
No characters exhibit traits or are discussed in relation to neurodivergence.
The film deals with biblical prophecy and occult destiny, not the revision of established historical facts.
The exposition is driven by plot and prophecy, not by modern, didactic social commentary or ideological lectures.
Why it received this score
Sequels are, by nature, conservative creatures, and this one is no exception. Seven years on from the original, the young Damien Thorn has been installed in a Chicago mansion and a military academy, where he studies the Book of Revelation with the enthusiasm of a boy who has found his calling. The plot turns on inheritance: who controls Thorn Industries, who controls the family fortune, who controls the world. There is a mild suggestion that unchecked corporate power is a bad thing, delivered with the subtlety of a falling elevator cable, but the film has no interest in economics beyond using a boardroom as a staging ground for patricide. The rich are not condemned here. They are simply devoured.
The supporting cast is uniformly white, uniformly prosperous, and uniformly doomed. Women exist to be frightened by ravens or to reveal themselves as Satanists at the last possible moment, a fate that resists any modern reading. Race goes unmentioned. The environment appears only as a frozen lake and a leaking factory, both deployed as murder weapons. Nobody discusses their body, their brain, or their carbon footprint. The film's moral universe is entirely theological, and its theology is remarkably old-fashioned: the devil is real, he is twelve, and he has excellent grades in history.
What remains is craftsmanship of a modest, workmanlike order. Jerry Goldsmith's score does the heavy lifting, the deaths arrive on schedule, and the whole enterprise opened at number one in American theaters, which tells us something about the summer of 1978 that we may not wish to examine. It is not a film with a message. It is a film with a body count, and it delivers that count with the grim punctuality of a man reading a ledger.
A note for the archive: the picture is a sequel, and it reached the top of the domestic chart in its opening weekend. Those are the only classifications it earns, and it earns them without effort or intent. The rest of the ledger is blank, and we file it accordingly, with a small sigh and a fresh cup of coffee.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Part of
Synopsis
Since the sudden and suspicious deaths of his parents, young Damien has been in the charge of his wealthy aunt and uncle and enrolled in a military school. Widely feared to be the Antichrist, he relentlessly plots to seize control of his uncle's business empire — and the world.
Questions about Damien - Omen II
Is Damien - Omen II woke?
No — Damien - Omen II is not woke, scoring 12 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Ultra Based.
Does Damien - Omen II have any woke elements?
Very few. None of the 10 markers reaches 30, the level where a marker counts as present; the highest is Eat the Rich at 20.
How does Damien - Omen II compare to other 1978 movies?
It ranks #6 of the 27 films from 1978 we've scored; their average is 8. The wokest is The Wiz (52).
Is Damien - Omen II the most woke The Omen movie?
No. It ranks #2 of the 4 The Omen films we've scored; the wokest is The First Omen (19).