the audience applauded

One of my all time favorites.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This sub-standard entry in the OMEN series is not as good as the first three films but not especially bad for a television movie, considering the horrors that followed it in the '90s. It plays and looks just like one of the earlier films in the series except this time the strange deaths are diluted and lacking in gore and the plot events are rehashed instead of being fresh and original. The somewhat clichéd spin on the tale was to have a gender-reversal, making the Antichrist a young girl and her mother the one who realises the truth (instead of the boy and his father Gregory Peck in the first film). But what happens? Well, by the end of the film there's a second child, a boy who turns out to be the real Antichrist, so goodness knows who the girl is supposed to be. It all gets very confusing and difficult to care about really.The plot is predictable and clichéd, pandering to the lowest common denominator and there's absolutely nothing new to be surprised about. Once again a series of strange deaths take priority and the resulting set-pieces are some of the best moments in the film. Things get fiery during a "psychic fair" involving lots of burning stuntmen, which is pretty funny, and there are some messy antics involving killer snakes to enjoy. Even David Warner's decapitation is rehashed from the first film, except the guy is in a car this time, but the resulting slow-motion head-lopping is still pretty nasty all things considered. Bizarrely, no mention is made of this horrific death - despite multiple witnesses - later on in the film! Occasionally black-outs and jump-cuts give evidence of post-production cutting but sadly even that failed to make a decent film out of this.Production values are fairly good for a television movie, with a passable budget allowing for some fairly good effects work. Sadly, the same can't be said of the acting, which is on the sub-standard side. Child actress Asia Vieira plays Delia, the Devil's child, this time around and is fairly ineffectual in the role and an unmemorable menace. Lots of blank stares don't make for a threatening character in my opinion. Faye Grant plays her mother and does the woman-in-peril thing, overacting occasionally but not being too bad. The same can't be said of Michael Woods as the father - after watching this film and THE UNBORN within in a week, I'm starting to wonder what happened to actors playing father figures in child-orientated horror films, as they never come across looking anything less than wooden. By far the best thing in the film is character actor Michael Lerner playing private investigator Earl Knight, who does some fairly heroic acts and has a great hallucination scene in which he sees holy things turning evil all around him - a solid performance that's a highlight of the film.Unfortunately, aside from Lerner, there isn't much to get worked up about. The familiar music is effective but overused badly at inopportune moments and the thrills and chills are diluted instead of being horrific. Even the ending is a predictable rip-off of THE OMEN. Devoid of suspense, thrills, chills and horror, and with only a little mild gore to recommend it, this entry in the series is a real let-down and one to be avoided, unless you happen to catch it on a lazy night on television. Whatever you do, don't spend money to see this as its distinctly average!

...But seriously, THIS IS A HORROR FILM! if it was meant to be scary it should have kept me on edge, you know like good horror films do (either that or make me feel for the characters - but that's not important when talking about this movie).The concept of this movie, when written on paper might actually be an interesting idea. Hell, there were parts of this movie which introduced subplots but (like the movie The Room) NEVER moves anywhere after it first being mentioned. The best example of this is Deliah menstruating, which could have introduced a lot of other interesting things in this movie, but instead it just sticks to this one little plot.About my summary "at least I can laugh at it". This movie really did have me in fits of laughter, I was MST3King the movie, but when I got to the ridiculous scenes, like the psychic fair, When all the psychics start having "looks of horror" (I put that in speech commas for a reason... BE WARNED) on their faces after looking at Deliah... I'm sorry just HOW can people take that seriously? let alone find it scary? it's scenes like that and some really badly written lines that make this movie funny.Oh and one thing also, Deliah does NOTHING to really say "she is the daughter of Satan" throughout this movie. Most of the time she just acts like a brat, either that or draw upside-down-crosses on things (which only happens twice). I don't think a brat is in any way intimidating. However people look intimidated at her throughout the movie, it seems like most of the characters in this movie are afraid of little girls.One other complaint about this movie. One of the basic things about movies is that the people working on the movie need to SHOW us what happened instead of TELLING us. This happens quite frequently in the movie, one of them being when Deliah's mother discovers Damien's her father, others like the Christians telling Deliah's mother that she used bad language when really she never said anything before they ran away. Just thought I'd point that out.So really, if you are looking for a movie to watch then please don't watch this. It is never scary, but unintentionally funny (which if that happens in a horror film - it's a failure) and if you're looking for either horror or comedy then please watch something else. This is a waste of time and money.

I could go into various details as to why this film is absolutely terrible; I could talk about the acting (or lack thereof). The stupidity of the Anti-Christ being opposed to new-age mystics (Because as we all know Satan has a particular dislike for Mystic Meg and her vague portents). The sloppy and rushed pacing and editing which leads to about zero tension throughout the film and killing any hope of creating a creepy atmosphere because scenes come and go in an instant (this is especially egregious at the start of the film where the Antichrist's first kill feels especially feeble because there is virtually no build-up at all). The addition of various sub-plots and scenes which add nothing of significance to the story and serve only to provide chills (which due to the rushed editing are very weak). And the overall fact that there is very little in the way of a goal for our heroine, she suspects that her daughter is evil but rather investigate herself she gives the task to a P.I. making her character very insignificant (couldn't they have told the whole story from the P.I.'s point-of-view?), which in turn leads to a very rushed ending with a feeble twist and a very undramatic confrontation.All of these things condemn the film on it's own. However what really damns it is the fact that it is part of the Omen series, more to the point a sequel to Part 3, which besmirching aside, MAKES NO SENSE. The reason why it makes no sense is pretty simple; for at the ending of The Omen 3: The Final Conflict, Christ RISES AND RETURNS TO EARTH AS KING OF KINGS and Damien Thorn fails to stop him, it's not just implied, it bloody well written on the screen before the credits. Now I don't know about you but I think the literal Second Coming would be it, over, finito, THE END, the conclusion of not just the story of Damien Thorn but the end of this reality and the start of God's new reign Etc. Etc. (Pretty much as the title "The FINAL Conflict" suggests). However here apparently none of that happened, Damien just died or something and Christ had nothing to do with it. It's a complete retconing the end of the Trilogy and such leaves a sour taste in the mouth. I am aware that this is a odd nitpick but for me this film was simply a dross remake of the original until the doctor (who looks remarkably like Rob Brydon) blurted out Damien Thorn's name and cemented this films awfulness. I.e. bad as a standalone film and a HORRIBLE, nonsensical way to conclude the franchise.

I was fully expecting this made for TV sequel to suck, and in that respect, I was not disappointed: this cheaply made, badly written, poorly acted piece of excrement is tantamount to blasphemy for fans of the Omen series, being devoid of the foreboding atmosphere of the other films, totally bereft of creative kills, and completely lacking in scares. Instead, we get silly shenanigans with new age mystics, an ugly kid sorely in need of a good orthodontist, a score that sounds like it should be accompanying a troupe of circus clowns, as-subtle-as-a-brick images of inverted crosses ad nauseum, and, worst of all, Satanic carol singers.I have seen it suggested that The Awakening might be an intentionally awful film in an attempt to parody the solemnity of the original trilogy; I highly doubt this, but if this should somehow prove to be be true, then shame on everyone involved for treating the franchise and its fans with such disrespect.If there is a Hell, then the makers of this rot will certainly have a special place reserved for them somewhere between the eighth and ninth circles (where the fraudulent and treacherous are punished): a sulphuric screening room in which they will be forced to watch their own abomination for all eternity (whilst having broken copies of the DVD roughly inserted up their rectum). Yes.... Omen IV: The Awakening really is that bad.