Sam Neill passed away on Monday at the age of 78. I think most of my friends would associate him the most closely with the various “Jurassic Park” films in which he appeared (1993 – 2022), or maybe the classic 1990 film adaptation of Tom Clancy’s “The Hunt for Red October.”
But, being an older Gen X’er, my first memory of this fine actor wasn’t for his roles as a nice-guy paleontologist or an affable would-be Soviet defector. It was the goddam anti-Christ.
“Omen III: The Final Conflict” arrived in 1981. (I would have discovered it on VHS a few years later at my local mom-and-pop video store.) It never became a part of the zeitgeist the ways its predecessors did in the prior decade, but it was definitely my favorite. (I am linking below to MDB Trailers for the trailer.)
It had a “cool” factor that the other movies lacked — thanks to Neill’s performance as a charismatic devil incarnate. He was smooth and charming and persuasive, and was a hell of a lot more fun to watch than a bratty kid who screamed when he was brought to church. He could even psychically control dogs, for some reason.
The assassin-priest protagonists were also really cool. (I was an apostate even then, so it took a lot to make me root for the clergy.) I think I was also really impressed with the broad canvas over which the film’s plot was placed. I’d grown up on scary movies that were mostly standalone monster movies (or maybe slasher films). Seeing an epic battle with lots of combatants in a larger theological context really entertained me as an adolescent horror fan.
Neill made the movie. It just wouldn’t have been the same without his perfect blend of charm and menace. I think he always got too little credit as a fantastic bad guy. Think about it. If you took his Damien Thorne and inserted him into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, would’t he be a contender for its best villain?
A few of my fellow horror fans have opined on social media that the film has not aged well. Maybe I was just easily impressed as a kid. I’m going to have to check it out again to decide where I stand today.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 