Holocaust 2000 (1978)

Holocaust 2000 is an Italian riff on The Omen but with late 70's fears of the dangers of nuclear power thrown into the mix for good measure. It's about a CEO of a multi-national corporation who wishes to build a new nuclear power plant in the Middle East. In some nearby caves he discovers ancient drawings of a demonic beast that resembles his projected power plant; an entity that is predicted in the Bible to signify the return of the Antichrist. A series of horrific accidents happen to people around him and it becomes evident that his son is the devil incarnate.The debt owed to The Omen is pretty clear in this one. Its brand of religious horror and creative death sequences is taken from that earlier film. Needless to say, it's not anywhere near the same level as The Omen series but it does have its moments. Quite impressively for an Italian horror film it has at its disposal a pretty big league actor in Kirk Douglas and he gives a pretty spirited performance. He is ably supported by Simon Ward, who plays his son. Ward can do 'cold' really well and its utilised well here in his role as the Antichrist. There are also some well-conceived individual moments, in particular a dream sequence where the nuclear power plant turns into a fearsome ten-headed hydra and rises from the sea. The creative death scenes are nowhere near as inspired as the ones from The Omen series but there are some good ones nevertheless, such as the helicopter decapitation.It does have to be said though that the film-makers are not above cheating the audience a little too much, such as the part where the mysterious girl who Douglas has an affair literally runs away from a Church in fear, leading us to think she must be in league with the devil. It turns out though that she is nothing of the kind so this whole scene is nothing more than a massive red herring that makes little sense. Overall the film isn't really plotted terribly well and that may account for the above silly audience manipulation but it also results in the film ending without a proper resolution. It almost feels like the end of the first part of a story as opposed to a proper finale; while the final scene itself was pretty ambiguous and I wasn't entirely sure what it meant to be honest.But criticisms aside, Holocaust 2000 is still an entertaining enough horror flick. It has enough of a budget to ensure that its ideas are brought to the screen with some effectiveness. So even if it doesn't deliver all that it could, it does enough to keep things interesting.

I'd only just heard of this one when it popped up on the Horror Channel, but knowing it was an Italian Omen rip-off I just had to watch it. It's got Kirk Douglas in it, and knowing how well he faired in the brilliant Master Touch, I had to see how things worked out for him in an Italian horror. After a title sequence full of real footage of starving and sick children (thanks, Alberto De Martino!), we find Kirk playing a businessman working on a project to build some sort of thermonuclear reactor in some unknown North African country. Before he starts blowing things up to level the ground, he finds a cave with the word IESUS written on it, but then blows it up anyway. So starts a change of events that manages to be slightly scary, daft, and hilarious all at the same time. Some guy turns up at a dinner party and tries to kill Kirk, but his son Angel grapples with the fella and his wife, who was against the project, gets a knife in the guts instead. You know how in the Omen folks who twigged what was going on ended up getting killed? Well, the happens here too. Kirk ends up visiting the stabby guy at an asylum which leads to a punch up between the inmates and the staff (brilliant), and then learns that the new Prime Minister of the country his project is in is against the project. Don't worry about him though, for he's about to lose the top of his head to a helicopter. Kirk has his own revelation between the image of a six-headed hydra and the six domes of his reactor which goes on for so long we were howling with laughter. Add to that the IESUS turning up as SUSEI and becoming a mathematical formula that relates to the medical records of a character and the film zooms off into ridiculous country. By this time folks are practically running up to Kirk and shouting "Stop the project! Antichrist! Six heads etc" while Kirk meets a priest who tells him that his second child is the antichrist, but is that his unborn child or his son Angel, who had a twin that died in the womb? Kirk eventually twigs after we see him have a dream where he's running around in the scud while the 'six heads – six reactors' thing starts again, which leads to another punch up in the loony bin (and someone getting their head caved in). Will evil win or will Kirk triumph? The film's cop out non-ending is a bit of a downer, but if you've seen any of Alberto De Martino's other films (like Blancheville Monster or Crime Boss) you'll know that Alberto is never in a hurry to get to the good stuff. This film was a good laugh, and beautiful to look at, but it was more funny than scary. You also get to see Kirk's arse, if that's your thing. Also - great Ennio Morricone soundtrack.

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.

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.