'THE CHOSEN' ('HOLOCAUST 2000')...........THE OMEN, ITALIANO......

The Chosen (a.k.a. 'Holocaust 2000') 1977.........stars the No.1 breathrough sensation of 1970's cinema....

             The devil.

               After making a huge splash in "The Exorcist" and later, "The Omen" that fabulous, fork-tailed, firebreathin', foulmouthed funster was big, big Box Office........

               So it was only a matter of time (actually, minutes) until Italian movie trash-meisters jumped on the Beelzebub Bandwagon with their own cheapo knockoffs........

                And as far as these things go, here's the very best of them..... an Italo-British co-production fronted by a huge star (Kirk Douglas at his intensive best) and backed up by a solid cast recruited from the top ranks of actors of both countries.....(Alexander Knox, Anthony Quayle, Adolpho Celi, Romolo Valli)

                Wildly uneven, the film alternates from a slavish imitation of "The Omen" to its own rather clever update on the genre........(the smooth Devil here plans to wipe out the earth with a nuclear power plant, which in design, vaguely resembles a multi-headed monster foretold in biblical prophecies......)

                 Kirk Douglas, as the CEO of the Nuke Power company is all gung ho about building the thing, until he starts noticing that everyone opposed to it meets grisly ends in gruesome 'Omen'-like ways.....(usually freak accidents ending in gory mutilation.....yum, yum)

                    The question remains.......who the devil's the Devil????

                    Your choices.....Kirk's second-in-command and apple-of-his-eye son, the suave blonde Simon War..... Of is it the yet unborn child of Kirk's much younger current girl-toy....(Agostina Belli)?

                    Nobody with more than two brain cells would strain themselves guessing this, but Kirk, to be on the safe side, arranges a surprise abortion for his baby-mama........what a thoughtful guy.....(he bases this rather drastic decision after noticing her skittishness about entering a church...….heh, heh, heh.....when's the last time anyone saw Trump within spitting distance of a church?)

                     The movie wastes some time using one of those two options as a red herring until it finally spills the beans and gets down to its apocalyptic business......the Devil wants his holocaust cause he thinks it'll make for a fresh start........(and given the state of the world, he's got a point there....)

                       Douglas, never less than fully committed to whatever film he's in, endures all sorts of wear and tear, including a naked meltdown inside a Middle East cave and periodic beatdowns with roomfuls of asylum crazies.......he does have a spiffy, glass encased computer office though, even if that mean ole Debbil sometimes turns the glass panels into an instant plus-sized kitchen slicer.....)

                         The splatter stuff is practically subliminal, but the film takes particular pride in a
sequence where our slick El Diablo engineers the death of an entire maternity ward's worth of babies.......a great way to rack up a high body count in less than one minute......Bravo, Beelzy......

                        It's all Guilty Pleasure fun most of the way, until the movie stumbles into its mismanaged, clumsily edited finale......a cobbled-together last minute attempt to concoct a positive outcome........and far different from the film's original European ending, which left the monstrous power plant in the hands of........well, you-know-who.......

                         3 stars (***), but that's strictly for those of you who enjoyed all those 70's  Devil movies, both the big budget originals and the extra-cheesy imitators.......if you're among 'em (as is BQ), you'll can have yourself a Hell of a good time........so to speak......and this one pours on the Cheese Whiz extra high...…..