OMEN IV: THE AWAKENING (1991) should have been put to sleep
An embarrassing unintentional comedy of all errors, no terrors.
The following compiles two different reviews from two separate viewings I’ve had of the deservedly detested Omen IV, combined into one handy overture of my consistent mockery of this film’s existence.
November 2nd, 2015:
“The Bible didn’t mean to be sexist. ‘Mankind’ can also mean ‘womankind’.”
One of the best and most hilarious comedies of all time.
Like, the score takes the iconic original Omen themes of Jerry Goldsmith, and outrageously parodies them in the over-the-top aural equivalent of John Cleese’s outRAAAgeous French accent in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (or any Monty Python thing at all, really).
Faye Grant takes a break from kicking alien lizard butt in V: The Miniseries (and V: The Final Battle, and the swiftly-cancelled one season-long V: The Series) to overact up a storm as the pregnant-with-the-new-Antichrist protagonist, while Michael Woods plays her disbelieving husband who is so insufferably thick, he’d be right at home in a Paranormal Activity movie.
Asia Vieira is Delia, the new sort-of-but-apparently-not-really-because-of-plot-related-bullshit demon child (after the death of Sam Neill’s adult Damien in Omen III), and she does… okay.
Michael Lerner — a.k.a. the Roger Ebert mayor from Godzilla (1998) — is the most enjoyable and watchable part of the film, and the best actor of the bunch, even if his P.I. character has the worst jazzy hardboiled soundtrack theme ever.
Honestly, there’s not a single scary scene to be found in this flick, so it’s best just to see it for its so-bad-it’s-good entertainment value.
A couple of special highlights include:
• The most sinister Jehovah’s Witness visit ever.
and
• The scene where Michael Lerner’s P.I. gets axed by the forces of darkness, preluded by him seeing a demonic version of a Nativity scene, and a grubby homeless choir singing along to the original Goldsmith score (with the delightful bonus of a woman literally holding a cross upright, then turning it upside-down while she sings, because EEEEEEEVIL!!!!!!), before he’s then dispatched by a wrecking ball (“I CAME IN LIKE A WREEEEECKING BAAAAAAALL!”) while he gapes at it in slow-motion with the most non-terrified expression imaginable.
It’s… just… magical.
Also:
What in the heck was Michelle MacLaren from Breaking Bad doing working on this piece of dross?!
Also also:
One of the listed cast is named… David Cameron?!?
OH MY GOD.
IT’S A SIGN!
THAT PIG-BUGGERING BASTARD IS HUMANITY’S DOOM!!!!!
April 16th, 2024:
- “Let me take her out this weekend. Just the two of us. There’s a psychic fair.”
- “A psychic fair — psychic fair? I don’t know, I don’t want Delia getting involved in anything strange.”
- “Oh, there’s nothing strange about metaphysics and new thought. It’s very positive.”
So they really just ignored that Jesus came back at the end of the third film, huh?
This shit still sucks and blows.
But hey, what else would you expect from a sorry excuse of a film co-directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard (the guy who did Halloween V: The Revenge of Michael Myers?), and Jorge Montesi (the guy who did Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?, and Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal)?
Asia Vieira’s fantastically diabolical child performance remains one of the only commendable highlights of Omen IV, as is the late Michael Lerner’s cat-loving private eye.
Though Christ almighty, do I hate the colossally wrongheaded score, which sounds more suited to Pee-wee’s Big Adventure than it does a fucking Omen movie…