Omen V: The Abomination by Gordon McGill

 

(pb; 1985: fifth book in The Omen pentalogy)

From the back cover

“Damien Thorn was dead─and the forces that defended good against the most hideous evil ever to threaten the world could relax.

“That was their mistake.

“For coming from the womb of the woman Damien Thorn had possessed was his son─and heir to the horror of Damien’s power and purpose.

“Now nothing could stop the new master of satanic seduction and ungodly destruction from enticing and enslaving all the earth as he used the weaknesses of human flesh and the strength of his hellish hunger to turn the world into the empire of the abomination.”

Review

Caveat: possible spoilers for The Final Conflict and Omen IV: Armageddon 2000 in this review.

“Nearly a year” after the occurrences of Omen IV: Armageddon 2000, the world is in gray grip of nuclear winter. Sickness and death run rampant. In West London, Paul Buher, who worked for Damien Thorn, then his charmless, nihilistic teenage son (now calling himself Damien Thorn II), has repented for decades of evil service. He thinks the seventeen-year-old hell-spawn is dead, but when Damien II appears on television, ready to helm his father’s corporation, a new cycle of desperation, death, and painful redemption begins.

Caught up in this new supranatural, corpse-ridden round is the shy Brother Francis (who appeared in Armageddon), a fellow monk and friend of the peacefully deceased Father DeCarlo (from The Final Conflict and Armageddon). Also ensnared anew is Margaret Brennan, widow of Philip (whom she killed at the behest of Damien II near the end of Armageddon)─she's now a mad, paranoid patient at St. Ignatius hospital in North London, a nun-run institution with its own secrets; and Bill Jeffries, who’s replaced Buher as Damien II’s right-hand man (Jeffries was briefly seen in Armageddon; he has a bigger role in Abomination).

New players in these Thorn-led machinations include: Jack Mason, a popular author who’s decided to write a book about Damien Thorn, his family, and those who’ve died around them; and Anna Brompton, Mason’s flirty research assistant and writer.

This time out, Damien II, in his black chapel at his Pereford estate, means to complete his world “peace”─the total annihilation of humankind, hiccupped by Buher’s betrayal at the end of Armageddon. This time it won’t just be a nuclear missile exchange between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem; it’ll begin with aggression further east, with bigger global players.

McGill refreshes Abomination’s storyline with new elements and minor variations, making Abomination a mostly intriguing and entertaining read. The beyond-the-films-horrifying deaths and all-around ickiness that punctuate its events are vivid, B flick-true and potent (e.g., Margaret Brennan’s bleach-induced abortion). The characters, as in Armageddon, are given more backstories than those in the movie tie-in novels, and its scope, again like Armageddon, are more intense than the film-based books and movies.

I say “mostly intriguing and entertaining” because McGill has a habit of making his characters, particularly those who serve(d) Satan, seek redemption through Christ as they approach death. It worked in previous Omen books (not every character embraced Christ), but in Abomination, it feels like a plot-convenient character inconsistency with at least one character (whose fealty to His infernal majesty might be lifelong). This is a minor blip in the book’s storyline, but it still feels forced.

Another thing that bothered me (as it did in previous books) was the notion of how anal rape lends itself to satanic pregnancies (e.g., Damien II), and how Damien II does not have a belly button because he was not umbilically linked to his host-mother (Kate Reynolds, The Final Conflict and Armageddon). Some reading this will think this is nitpicking, and I get it. That said, suspension of disbelief is highwire-balancing act (even in books like the Omen pentalogy), and all writers are at their best when they provide solid grounding (setting-wise, especially) for their more outlandish ideas. The anal rape/no-umbilical cord thing feels forced, like the religious conversion of one of Abomination’s key characters.

Bottom line: Abomination is mostly well-written, darkly and over-the-top funny, ambitious and B-movie entertaining, a work that satisfactorily wraps up the Omen series.

Omen IV: Armageddon 2000 by Gordon McGill

 

(pb; 1983: fourth book in The Omen pentalogy)

Caveat: possible spoilers if you’re not aware of the events of The Final Conflict.

Eighteen years after the violent deaths in The Final Conflict, Damien Thorn’s body is dead, but his spirit and powers live on─this is because Carl Bugenhagen (who died in Damien—Omen II) was not able to pass on vital instructions on how to kill the Antichrist: one must stab Damien with all seven daggers of Meggido, in the shape of a cross, for him to truly die. Unfortunately, only one of the daggers─the one that ended his physical life─was used on Damien, so his infernal powers and mission were passed on to a new being. Father DeCarlo, present when Damien was killed in Final, knows this now and says as much in Armageddon─this is a mistake the brave old monk, even on his deathbed, means to correct.

The new person bearing Damien’s powers and hell-sourced drive is an unnamed seventeen-year-old boy (henceforth called The Boy in this review). The Boy, Damien’s dead-ringer-of-a-son, is a product of Kate Reynold’s animal-rough union with Damien in Final. The Boy is quietly tucked away at Pereford, a Thorn family estate─the same location where Damien lived in The Omen and Final.

The Boy is watched over by George, his old and loyal butler, and Paul Buher, seventy-year-old head of the Thorn corporation. Buher, seen and mentioned in Damien and Final, still grieves for the fallen Antichrist.

Buher’s mourning, anger, and sense of failure are exacerbated by The Boy’s attitude─he is a charmless, blunt, and arrogant child whose main mission is to destroy humankind to avenge his father’s death. The Boy, like Damien, brings about and spins terrorist attacks in the Middle East, and wants to kill the Christ child (who was born to gypsies in Final). Unlike his father, The Boy lacks charm and does not care about his role in prophecies: he is merely lashing out, living to inflict as much mass cruelty and destruction for its own sake.

This being an Omen story, bizarre and horrific Thorn-linked deaths occur. Among those hounded by the Antichrist’s son: Mary Lamont, a cultist who slew a child in Damien’s name in Final; Carol Wyatt, a reporter who begins snooping around Pereford; and Michael Finn, mentioned but not named in Final as the man who purchased the daggers of Meggido at an auction.

In Armageddon, it falls to Philip Brennan, US Ambassador to the Court of St. James, to stop Damien’s secret son. Brennan is kind, level-headed, not religious and can barely believe the wild stories about Damien, “the Thorn curse,” and Pereford, but as too-strange-to-be-coincidence events occur and the satanic death toll rises, Brennan is forced to acknowledge there may be some truth to Brother Francis and Father DeCarlo’s crazy tales even as others advance The Boy’s cataclysmic intent.

Armageddon─not a movie tie-in book─is a worthy sequel to David Seltzer’s Omen, one that not only matches the above-average, dark intensity of Seltzer’s story- and character-deepening source novel but answers the nagging question about DeCarlo and the monks being ignorant about the seven-daggers-to-kill-Damien requirement. From a reader’s point-of-view, McGill’s Conflict felt constrained, as if his creative hands were tied to the film’s choppy, hyper-focused storyline. In Armageddon McGill’s storyline flows better, there’s variation to its familiar set-up (even as it keeps true to established Omen elements, characterizations and themes) and it goes for broke in its raw, macabre finish, suitably ending on an abrupt, truly B-flick ending that somewhat mirrors Final’s.

McGill also brings more of the Omen’s inherent black humor to the fore (e.g., the fate of Damien’s corpse) as well as equally perverse, almost satirical twists and callbacks that elevate Armageddon, make it more fun and unpredictable (in parts). Followed by Omen V: The Abomination by Gordon McGill.

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A third film sequel to The Omen (1976), Omen IV: The Awakening, aired on TV/Fox channel on May 20, 1991. (The previous Omen films were theatrical releases.) Co-starring Don S. Davis (Stargate: SG-1, 1997-2007) and Michael Lerner (Elf, 2003), Awakening is not based on Armageddon.

The Final Conflict by Gordon McGill

 

(pb; 1980: movie tie-in novel, based on Andew Birkin’s screenplay. Third book in The Omen pentalogy.)

From the back cover

“Around the globe, drought, famine, and flood are striking down helpless millions. And everywhere there is trouble, Damien Thorne’s followers can be found─almost before disaster strikes─ready to offer aid to the pitiful survivors.

“Damien, the handsome, thirty-two-year-old head of one of the world’s most powerful corporations and certain to be president of the United States by the time he’s forty, Damien, believed to be the son of Satan, who is relentlessly reaching out to claim the Earth for the forces of darkness. . .

“Now is the time of prophecy, the beginning of the end for mankind. But where is the promised Messiah to save the world from ultimate evil. . .?”

Review

Final is a solid second book sequel to David Seltzer’s The Omen. Like its predecessor movie tie-in novel, Joseph Howard’s Damien—Omen II, it has the same virtues and play-it-safe drawbacks of its subgenre: Final is well-written, the characters and their relationships are well-sketched, its pacing is a deft, series-consistent balance of backstory, characterization, action, and horrifying death scenes. Despite that, the book adds little to the story or characters, although its tone is more perverse (e.g., Damien’s Black Chapel inside his Pereford house, where he was raised by Robert and Katherine Thorn), and McGill, when writing about one of The Omen’s satanic priests, calls him “Father Tassone” (Edgardo Emilio Tassone), Seltzer’s book-version name for the priest. In the 1976 film version of The Omen, Tassone was called Father Brennan.

One obvious thing─possibly an egregious flaw─is that most of the priests in the movie tie-in sequels (aside from Carl Bugenhagen, who died in Damien) think they need to stab Damien with one of the Crucifixion-hilted daggers, when they need to use seven, in a cross-like pattern. How did that vital information escape the priests’ attention?

Final’s ending has an abrupt, low-budget B-movie finish, appropriate when one considers the hard-cut, not-quite-choppy cinematic feel of Final. While not a standout entry in its series or subgenre, it’s modestly entertaining, a good writer toeing the line of his work-for-hire subgenre.

Followed by Gordon McGill’s Omen IV: Armageddon 2000, a non-movie tie-in, and related to the 1991 television movie (Omen IV: The Awakening) in series name only (their storylines are completely different).

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Final's film version, bearing the same title, was released stateside on March 20, 1981. Graham Baker directed it, from a screenplay by Andrew Birkin.

Sam Neill played Damien Thorne. Lisa Harrow played Kate Reynolds. Barnaby Holm played Peter Reynolds.

Rossano Brazzi played DeCarlo.

Don Gordon played Harvey Dean. Leueen Willoughby played Barbara Dean.