The OctOmen - The Made-for-TV Edition - Omen IV: The Awakening

Death is but a door, time a window, and horror franchises have never stopped because their villain was killed off before, so once again, we return to the Damien-less world of The Omen.

This has been an interesting month for me. I stand by my opinion that Damien: Omen II and The Final Conflict are both movies that could have been more than they were, but it was still interesting to find the good elements in them along with the shortcomings.

Watching this movie in light of that, I have to wonder if I have a monkey’s paw on me somewhere, because this sequel feels like it decided to address the horror shortage in the worst way possible.

This project was pitched to revive the Omen franchise for TV. I’ve seen accounts claiming it was just for this series, others saying this was testing the water for television revivals of other Fox film series. To his credit, Harvey Bernhard stuck around, feeling there was still some life in the brand. An optimistic view, considering the last movie ended with its central villain dead and the literal Second Coming under way.

Where did they go from that? Just pretending it didn’t happen, apparently, instead jumping ahead a few years to this film’s new unsuspecting parents, played by Faye Grant and Michael Woods. She’s a retired lawyer, he’s an up and coming local politician, and they decide to adopt a child. Enter the newest Satanic offspring, Delia, played by Asia Vieria. As you can imagine, deaths grounded and insane ensue.

As you might be guessing, yes, the answer to ‘where do you go when you’ve killed the Antichrist?’ is ‘soft reboot with HIS kid’.

Whose earliest scenes include her biting a Barbie doll's face and leaving teeth marks.
No one will EVER suspect!

The sad thing is, on paper, this could have worked. It would be a shift after how much they wed the first trilogy to following the Biblical playbook, but it could be done. I can even see potential in flipping the first movie’s ‘father-son’ dynamic to ‘mother-daughter’ and how that could change the nature of the relationship being tested.

As is so often the case, however, execution is a factor. On that front, this attempt just…yeah.

Delia is the best place to start. For a series that established itself on the idea that a seemingly innocent child could be the devil’s spawn, this movie isn’t interested in hiding the fact Delia is evil – with frequent glares at just about everyone, open antagonism, and a first half that reads less like The Omen and more like The Bad Seed with powers, this movie carries itself with a level of subtlety that, to its credit, would play well in a parody, but doesn’t work as well if you’re trying to for something serious.

Not that this movie seems to have an especially strong sense of its tone to begin with. Part of this is likely thanks to the fact they changed directors mid-stream, starting the project under the direction of Dominique Othenin-Girard (whose other big horror claim to fame is Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers) before he was replaced mid-way by Jorge Montesi (whose biggest claim to fame MIGHT be Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? make of that what you will.) Whether this was a problem at the initial script level or with the directorial change, the movie makes some wild sweeps, such as in an early scene that goes from Delia antagonizing a bully in a Bad Seed-style display of open humiliation that then shifts into a scene of his said bully’s father being beheaded in a car accident – said beheading isn’t shown, but the directorial cue to indicate it is…well…see below.

Credit where it's due, I think this may be the first time in this franchise that a director thought 'What if we make a kill funny?'

The set pieces only get weirder from there with an extended subplot involving new age healers that detect Delia’s evil through her aura, a faith healing that goes awry, and a detective storyline that leads to what might be the most unintentionally comic death of the entire series, culminating in a reveal that made it clear they were really hoping this would pave the way for more sequels that just didn’t land.

I should be up front – I came into this movie actively trying to find some good for it. I wanted to be able to avoid completely dragging on the film, as cathartic as that would be. The problem is, outside of unachieved potential, there isn’t much I can give this. The casting isn’t too bad, and I was pleased to see the supporting roles including familiar faces in character actors Don S. Davis and Michael Lerner, but even they can only do just so much. Lerner is arguably the brightest spot in this, and that still gets undercut by the fact his final scene is downright ludicrous in how it plays out.

And when I say ludicrous, I mean this movie TECHNICALLY turns into a musical for one scene.

I can’t even fall back on the Jerry Goldsmith score this time, while they brought back some of his old hits for this, they’re either redone versions or utterly misused in some cases – the above-mentioned Lerner scene employing the first movie’s ‘Killer Storm’ to make an already ridiculous moment somehow top itself.

I could probably do a much more thorough breakdown of this movie’s failings, but again, with minimal good to bolster that, at this point it would just be so much public flogging of a movie that it could be argued has already paid for its crimes. Outside of completism, the best I could give is that this does at least have some camp value. Not enough that I see it getting a second life as a so-bad-it’s-good, but at least enough that there are worse ways you could spend 90 minutes and change.

Next up, we come to one I will admit that, before this, I hadn’t seen since it was in theaters. It will be interesting to see if my memory deceives me and maybe the 2006 remake of The Omen (AKA The Omen: 666, stick a pin in that now, because it WILL be discussed) is better than I remember.

Or at least manages to be better than this.

Setting a low bar here, but hey...

Will see soon.

Till then.

P.S. So, just as a teaser for the 31^st here, guys. Next to these two movies, the last two books are looking a whole lot better than I expected. Will explain soon!