Producer: A&E
Writer: Glen Mazzara
Director: Shekhar Kapur
Featuring: Bradley James, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Omid Abtahi, Barbara Hershey
Release Date: USA OUT NOW! UK TBC

Hell’s bells! It’s been twenty-five years since the events of the film The Omen and now anti-Christ Damien Thorn (pretty boy Bradley James) is thirty years old and his secret heritage is about to come crashing down on him in Damien Season 1 Episode 1, The Beast Rises.  Damien Thorn has lost the horrific memories of his childhood, but, you’ve guessed it, those memories are returning.

While The Omen was an exercise in nail-biting horror, in Damien Season 1 Episode 1, The Beast Rises, the tension feels forced. A scene where a man is killed by Hell hounds looks so fake and so badly edited it would make Ed Wood proud. And every scene in Damien Season 1 Episode 1, The Beast Rises is inexplicably dark, in every home and office, and even inside an ambulance in the daylight.

Although there were a few nice camera angles, overall the phrase to describe Damien Season 1 Episode 1, The Beast Rises is: potential not realised. The dialogue is too slow and pedantic. Scenes are too predictable and, to be honest, It took an effort to watch the entire episode, and in the end the finale is lukewarm at best.

For Damien Season 1 Episode 1, The Beast Rises, it is a shame when film source material is better than the television series. If the rest of the episodes of follow the same vein, then the series is likely to be heading for Perdition.

Reviewer: Joe Lovece
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker