On Halloween I watched an old flick I have on VHS called Holocaust 2000 [1977] starring Hollywood icon Kirk 'chisel chin' Douglas and quintessential English posh boy Simon Ward.
I saw it the first time years ago when I bought the VHS big box at a boot sale. This time round it was the tinterweb that supplied it. Well, it is 2023.
Basically Holocaust 2000 is an Omen [1976] rip-off, brazenly clinging on to the coat-tails of Damian's tuxedo, but its done with some considerable dosh and aplomb and certainly worth a watch if you like Seventies horror.
Like the much more famous Omen there's an aging Hollywood legend at the helm, playing a VIP, with business tycoon Kirk Douglas - Mr. Caine - taking the place of Ambassador Gregory Peck - Mr. Thorne. There's also a pasty-faced son with a symbolic name, Damien in the Omen and Angel in 2000. Finally both films have a beautiful female star at the centre. Lee Remick in the Omen and Agostina Belli in 2000.
Other similarities include scenes clearly cloned from the much more successful Omen, namely the head and the torso moments. 2000 changes them to suit but they do look very familiar when you see them.
What Holocaust does have, however, is its own environmental angle. CND were huge in Britain in the late Seventies. They even had their own stage at Glasto! They feature in Holocaust 2000 a lot on placards during noisy protests to stop the construction of Kirk Douglas's fission nuclear power station in some unnamed desert kingdom.
The nuclear power station becomes the central force in the movie, often overdrawn with flashing images of a seven-headed monster rising from the tempestuous sea. Again, much Omenising has gone on here as the first time we see this monster is on an ancient mural on a cave wall recalling Thorne before the mural in the Omen with Bugenhagen [and continued in The Omen II].
The Omen was a monstrous hit. We can all remember parts of it. It formed part of the mid-Seventies pop culture. Not so Holocaust 2000, a film with aliases - The Chosen and Rain of Fire - which is never a good sign.
Still, I like this Omen clone. It has its own feel and style. Oh, and Kirk Douglas' chin!
Have you seen it?
.jpg)
