Omen IV - Das Erwachen

In spite of everything,Omen IV is not that bad.Considering its made-for-TV,10 years after the release of Final Conflict,AND that they changed directors in mid-stream(or was it mid-scream?) the movie turned out better than I had hoped.I had read some ghastly revues,but Omen IV is a competent,watchable and involving thriller.There were some fine performances too,especially Michael Lerner,Faye Grant,Michael Woods,and in particular Asia Viera as the diabolical Delia.Girls are the weaker sex?You'd never know it from Delia.7 out of 10.

The fact that I watched this entire movie says something about it...or me. It is not a good movie. Terrible in fact. But terrible in the way that kept my attention in that perverse manner that is akin to watching a tragedy and not being able to look away. It would have made a great MST3K subject!

Most of the things that make a terrible movie enjoyable are here: bad dialogue, inappropriate music, contrived plot sequences, ridiculous pseudoscience. You'll thrill to slo-mo death sequences, the poor victims with mouths agape and waaaaaaaay too much time to contemplate their impending doom, facing the outrageously contrived deliverer of their deaths. Your heart will be warmed by old action scene cliches like when two women struggle for a gun and it goes off, but WHO'S SHOT? Both look at themselves, then the other, then themselves, then (seemingly 15 minutes later), one finally goes down. You'll sing along (in latin of course) with the street carolers that turn into a ghastly death's-choir that, for a moment, threatened to turn the movie into a twisted musical.

So if you believe like I do that as movies get worse they get better, then this might be a decent choice for you. It's not as funny as my current sci-fi schlock favorite, "They Live" featuring Rowdy Roddy Piper, but it's more fun to watch than luke-warm movies like Omen II or III.

I give it 4 out of 10.

Ho-hum. Isn't it tiresome when viewers just totally blast a film like there are no redeeming qualities in it whatsoever. To read many of the other user comments, you'd think this was the worst film ever made.

Yes... this TV-movie is certainly not very inspired. Yes, it's a rehash, featuring much of what we've seen before in previous OMEN movies. And, yes, the film isn't above giving us our share of cliches... the hound from hell becomes the kid's protector, after saving her life. The new nanny may not be as innocent as she appears.

However... one has to take such a film in perspective. The series pretty much ran its course with the third one, where Damien had grown and become the U.S. president. So, of course old ground is going to be retread... it's a TV-movie for goodness' sake. (Not that all TV-movies are necessarily junk... DUEL jump-started Steven Spielberg's career... but, chances are, you're not going to get an auteur at the wheel of a TV-movie.)

What you do with a film like this is get in the mood for old, rehashed OMEN-like "thrills." The concept is still strong... a couple has a "Rosemary's Baby," building up one evil incident after another; slowly one or both parents become aware that something's not quite right. Then the terrible and profound conflict of choosing to protect humanity or your own "flesh and blood" (figuratively speaking.... here, the kid was adopted) comes into play. (Reminds me of the television series "Xena" where the same conflict arose with one of the main characters.) Then you just sit back, relax, and see how the film makers went about presenting such watchable drama.

Being a TV-movie, the gore quotient was low, minimizing the impact of the horrible deaths we are accustomed to in this series. Not that gore necessarily translates to chills, but you can't expect to be genuinely scared, generally, especially with a TV-movie. (Very, very few films are genuinely scary; even under the hands of a master, Stanley Kubrick... THE SHINING wasn't all that scary.) However, there were some jarring moments, like the detective (Michael Lerner... a highlight, here) getting into a "CARNIVAL OF SOULS" state of mind where appearances go from normal to the bizarre. (For example, the choir on the street, singing Christmas songs, suddenly becoming something else.) And the acting..? What was wrong with the acting? It's not like the actors weren't competent. The mother played by Faye Grant, for example, came across well enough. Maybe she's not the most extremely talented performer in the world, but she delivered satisfactorily. I found the kid to be a little disappointing, not convincingly menacing enough. However, she was much better than the Skywalker kid in THE PHANTOM MENACE. Sometimes you gotta make allowances for kids. Child actors who are knockouts are rare.

Now, don't get me wrong... I'm not saying low expectations should translate to the enjoyment of any movie. For example, there are entries in the FRIDAY THE 13th that I've found hard to watch, simply because some were totally uninspired. Even though nothing really knocked my socks off with this latest installment of THE OMEN, I wasn't bored, and was entertained overall. There were even some nice touches, like the inverted cross reflection on the dying former nun's hospital room wall, and the wonderfully subtle last shot, utilizing the crosswalks of the graveyard. Too many viewers love to be unfairly critical.

Although I have given this the same rating as I did for 'Omen III: The Final Conflict' (1981), that is purely for two reasons: the use (or re- use, really) of Jerry Goldsmith's fine scores from both 'The Omen' (1976) and 'The Final Conflict', and one of the film's better death scenes, which closely recalls the runaway train of 'Damien: Omen II' (1978), reminding us that there is something left of the spirit of Damien Thorn.

And that is one of the problems here. Only one fleeting reference is made to the anti-hero of the previous 'Omen' films and the mother character, Karen York (played by Faye Grant) even dares to ask who he was! Wasn't Damien supposed to be a vital figure in both politics and business a mere ten years before? A man aiming for a seat in the Senate and, from there, the Presidency? A key captain of industry and, like his adoptive forefathers, a key adviser to the President of the United States? She is a lawyer, after all, and you'd think that a lawyer would do something like read a newspaper once in a while...

It is implied (although never confirmed) that the new Antichrist, a girl named Delia York (played quite well by Asia Vieira) is the daughter that Damien had with that pesky journalist, Kate Reynolds (Lisa Harrow) from the previous film, and it would, at least, have mildly improved things somewhat to have Harrow reappear or at least get something of a mention. It might even have been a bit of a fun turn-around for the actress to get a Joan Hart-style role here, even if she did ultimately bite the dust!

Dominique Othenin-Girard started work on this film, having recently directed the unoriginal, but still okay 'Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers' (1989). He left the film during production (again, probably because of artistic differences) and was hurriedly replaced by Jorge Montesi. Being a TV movie at a time when TV movies weren't really anything to shout about anyway, you can't really tell the difference between the work done by the directors. The action sequences (such as the aforementioned death scene) were directed by the so-called 'Devil's Godfather' and 'Omen' producer, Harvey Bernhard.

Basically, this is a remake of the original film, albeit with a few twists and turns along the way. Mainly, the major change is that, while the mother in the original film (Lee Remick) was treated like she would fall apart at any moment, Faye Grant is the investigator here. The idiotic husband, Gene York (Michael Woods), whilst constantly busy on Capitol Hill, has little to do other than give her and Delia the occasional hug and berate Karen for being neurotic. But, in places, Faye Grant's acting is very wooden and obvious, such as when she tells Delia that "That's just not true!" But Damien's lackeys demean her just as much as Damien himself mistreated Lisa Harrow in the previous film.

Well known TV actors Michael Lerner, Don S. Davis and Madison Mason get quite good roles, with Lerner holding the true charisma here as a former crooked cop turned shady private investigator who is hired by Karen York to dig deeper into Delia's history. The film even gets a brief, but reasonably effective version of both Holly and Mrs. Baylock from the original film but, as said, they appear far too briefly and too weirdly to make any true impact on the audience. Other performances are very overdone, especially the nun who gives the Yorks their new baby (Megan Leitch).

One good scene is an early sequence in which Karen and Delia are playing and run across a 'heroic' Rottweiler -- a more plausible introduction for man's best friend into the Yorks' household than in the original 'Omen'! Quite simply, Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) should have fired the Baylock woman (Billie Whitelaw) on the spot for constantly dragging that demonic mutt back into the house!

Die-hard fans of the 'Omen' franchise may want to give this one a go, but it literally is a film for a rainy day when there is nothing better to do!

Harvey Bernhard and Stanley Mann had penned an adaptation of Gordon McGill's 'Omen IV: Armageddon 2000' back in 1983, but it was rejected for this trashy, uninspired TV movie. In comparison, Bernhard's and Mann's script is godly and suspenseful, with a great look back over the 'Omen' films, and attempts to repair the damage done to the running plot of the franchise in 'The Final Conflict'.

Inverted crosses galore, the aforementioned retread of Goldsmith's score (shockingly mouthed by some demonic carol singers in one scene, ewww!!!), and that one death scene make this intermittently interesting but, if 'The Final Conflict' saw the 'Omen' series run out of steam, then this one left it dead and buried, with only other remakes left to make audiences remember the glory days of the original!

Only the Antichrist could have been behind such a disaster. One only hopes that this irony was the motivating force behind the "film"! This movie was so bad, it forced me to register with IMDb, finally, just so I could trash it. What makes this movie all the more tragic is that it had such GREAT source material! I have never seen a movie where all the elements were so grotesquely mediocre as to render the result less than the sum of its parts.

It may seem insignificant, but I'd like to start with the score. As the proud owner of a music degree, I must register my indignation! I was torn between laughter and dry heaves as I listened to what John Scheffer did to Goldsmith's brilliant score; it was far more gruesome than any of the burlesque death scenes, and almost as inadvertently comedic. It was by far the most inappropriate score I've heard since, well, I really can't think of a worse one. Maybe JAWS 4?

As for the plot... I'm sorry. New Age mysticism??? What ever happened to the gritty realism of the original trilogy? In those films (more so in the first two than the third, but still!!) the supernatural was for the most part implied, and it was this subtlety that made the movies so eerily believable. Here we have crystals going black (calling all Skeksis and Mystics!!) and inverted crucifixes galore, even though in certain scenes the crucifux would be perfectly normal but for the camera angle. Gone is the refined psychlogical manipulation tapping the malaise inherent in our collective psyche: in its place a boorish "slap in the face" of recycled cliché and transparent incompetence. Add to that a lead "actress" so unbelievably ANNOYING that you fervently thank the director for those scenes from which she is absent. Never have I seen a little girl so fundamentally irritating since little Stephanie ruined ALL IN THE FAMILY.

Other than that, I have no strong feelings on the subject ;-) Luckily the first three films are sufficiently adroit as to render this train-wreck of wasted celluloid inconsequential or, at the very most, a study in how NOT to make a film. Viewer beware! May induce vomiting if you're lucky.