Buy this movie at Amazon.com!

You've got to love movie franchises that go on for so long, that eventually the sequels start going straight to cable. Omen IV: The Awakening premiered on Showtime in 1991, and as you can probably guess, the movie's got some major flaws. After all, several of them are spelled out right there in the title for you.

Number one, it's an Omen movie. And yeah, the first Omen made a lot of money for a lot of people, but I doubt many would say it was really that great of a movie in the first place.

Second of all, this movie is a Part 4. And with very few exceptions, franchises that last all the way to a fourth installment end up scraping the bottom of the cinematic barrel. And when it comes to horror franchises in particular, there's a tendency to continue on even after hitting bottom, and using the shredded, shattered remnants of the cinematic barrel itself to make at least three more shitty sequels after that.

Like the Amityville series, the Psycho series, the Hellraiser series, the Witchcraft series, the Halloween series, and the Howling series before it, nobody was really pining for a second or third Omen movie, much less a fourth. (Especially considering the third film ended with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ; an event that—obviously—is not even mentioned in Omen IV.)

The next thing you'll notice is the title continues the '90s cliché where every action/sci-fi sequel was required to have a nonsensical subtitle. Like Highlander II: The Quickening. Or Darkman III: Die, Darkman, Die! Or even Howling: New Moon Rising. Not to mention the poorly received Candyman IV: The Candymanining. Okay, they haven't made that last one yet, but I think it's only a matter of time.

In that fine tradition, this installment of the Omen franchise is subtitled The Awakening. I have no idea why they called it that, except possibly to make it easier for TV critics to come up with ironic headlines. 'AWAKENING' PUSHES SNOOZE BUTTON, yuk yuk.

I'm pretty sure I don't need to recap the previous Omen movies, right? I think everyone knows about Damien, and how's he the Antichrist, and how an unsuspecting couple (Gregory Peck and Lee Remick in the first film; William Holden and Lee Grant in Omen II) raises him and begins to suspect he's evil incarnate. Meanwhile, everyone around them is killed in bizarre, freak accidents. Omen IV makes no bones about sticking to that formula (the only "twist" being that the spawn of Satan is now a little girl), and reusing exact lines of dialogue and slavishly recreating entire scenes from the first three films, only on a pay-cable budget.

Well, at least this movie narrowly escapes the "in-name-only" trap that befell franchises like the Howling series, where each successive sequel had nothing to do with the previous films. At least Omen IV does make reference to the earlier films. Very rushed, half-hearted references, all in the last three minutes of the movie, but references nonetheless.

Oh, and look! Just like The Amityville Horror and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the Omen falls into that lucky group of franchises that hit rock bottom, only to have big Hollywood money come along and start them over from scratch with a glossy remake of the original.

Yep, The Omen has been remade, starring Julia Stiles and Liev Schreiber as the unlucky couple who unwittingly adopts the spawn of Satan. And the movie premieres on June 6, 2006. Geddit? 06-06-06! (Not that the original movie was all that subtle, either. Damien was born at 6am on June 6th, after all.)

And while it appears from the trailers to be a more authentic recreation of the original than say, the Poseidon remake, I'm sure it's a pointless rehash that takes the same gory, blood-soaked, missing-the-point approach of every other "horror" remake released in the last five years. And if Poseidon's opening means anything, it'll probably tank, too.

Now, obviously, I like to post reviews that relate to current releases, to at least give this site the illusion of being topical. But the true, secret reason I'm reviewing Omen IV is because it stars Faye Grant. She played Dr. Julie Parrish in the miniseries V, the sequel V: The Final Battle (another misleading subtitle!), and the subsequent weekly series.

Frequent visitors to this site don't need to be reminded of how much I love V, or how I look for any excuse to mention it, particularly when members of the V cast show up in a movie reviewed here. (Although, I'd like to point out that I didn't add a word about V during Leonard Cimino's appearance in Hudson Hawk. For the record, he's the guy who spray paints the big red V at the end of the first miniseries. And since I've now made a thing out of mentioning him, I've just blown to hell whatever point I was trying to make in this parenthetical aside. Never mind.)

But with Faye, there's an added dimension. To be completely candid (in other words: beware of TMI approaching) there's a good chance seeing Faye Grant on my TV screen in that tight white bodysuit getting converted by Diana was the moment I realized I'd hit puberty. Believe me, I'm not the type to get crushes on film actresses, or celebrities, or any other woman that I'll never meet. I can't think of a single actress working today that I would go out of my way to see in a movie. But even watching crap like Omen IV, I'm mesmerized by Faye Grant. Yeah, she's put on a few pounds since her V days, but she's still amazing.

Celebrity trivia aficionados like me might know that Faye is married to Stephen Collins, the dad from 7th Heaven and Will Decker from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Faye once parlayed this relationship into a 7th Heaven guest spot. And looking at the IMDb, that guest appearance happened in... 1996? Geez, how long has that show been on, anyway?

Thankfully, I'm not so mesmerized by Faye Grant that I can't see this film for what it is: Probably one of the most laughably awful movies I've ever seen. This one's definitely for the bad movie fan who enjoys campy TV horror like Mr. Murder or Satan's School for Girls or Spring Break Shark Attack.

The movie kicks off with a near-repeat of the opening to the original Omen, with Faye Grant standing in for Lee Remick, and some random generic soap actor guy in place of Gregory Peck. They play the Yorks, an affluent Washington couple who, unable to conceive, decide to adopt a baby from, you guessed it, the local convent orphanage. Haven't people learned by now? Don't take babies from creepy nuns!

A baby girl is given to them by a young nun named Sister Yvonne (Megan Leitch, who played Samantha Mulder on The X-Files—or did she?). The couple are overjoyed as they drive away, but for no particular reason, Sister Yvonne starts to cry and panic.

She runs around frantically, until an Older Nun confronts her in a hallway. Older Nun spreads her arms, and they embrace. End scene. Huh? Get used to this level of coherence for the rest of the film.

Cut to the Yorks presenting the new baby to their friends. Included in this group are the Yorks' Token Black Friends, a husband and wife who will constantly pop up throughout the film to great humorous effect, particularly given that they will each get one line apiece.

Mrs. York might have a first name, but since she's being played by the radiant Faye Grant, I'll just stick with Faye to save time. Faye shows off the baby to the well-wishers, cracking jokes about the girl's impressive crying skills: "When she's hungry, she can hit notes Tina Turner hasn't thought of!" Well, that line is certainly not dated at all, wouldn't you say? Maybe the new Omen movie will reference Mariah Carey. Or Kelly Clarkson.

Suddenly, the baby scratches Faye's cheek, drawing blood [!]. Now that's subtle. This baby wouldn't be eeeevil by any chance, would she? Someone comes along and pulls a giant safety pin out of the baby's swaddling clothes and says it must be what caused the scratch. Oh sure, just blame it on the safety pin. And why do they call them "safety pins", anyway? There's nothing safe about them.

Back at the convent, the sky suddenly grows dark, causing Sister Yvonne to have yet another major freakout. The Older Nun tries to convince her that the sky suddenly growing dark is not an "event". Yvonne screams back, "A spontaneous eclipse? [!!] How many spontaneous eclipses have you seen in your life?" It's not often that the most obvious criticism of a movie's plot point makes it into the movie.

Sister Yvonne continues flipping out, so Older Nun comes over and smacks her around for a good long while. Apparently, she's a little too vigorous in her bitch slapping, because Older Nun abruptly drops dead of a heart attack. It's just one of those days, huh?

Sister Yvonne screams "NOOOOOO!!" and runs into the church, where she rips off her habit, and lets her Tawny Kitaen-style curly hair fly everywhere, and turns all hot '80s chick. She slides to the floor before the altar, just in time to see the crucifix fall over and end up upside down. NOOOOO!!! The contractor used substandard materials!

Cut to Faye going to see her family doctor. We know he's also a close friend of the family, because he was there at the big unveiling of the baby. And for a doctor, he's ridiculously dismissive about all the bizarre illnesses and conditions that will befall the Yorks over the course of the film. (Half the time, I expect a Dr. Hibbert-like chuckle when he leaves the examination room.)

Like here, where that scratch on Faye's cheek has gotten infected [!], and there are gnarly red lines going all down her neck. So, the baby is supposed to be evil, you say? Faye can't believe a baby's scratch could do this, so the Doc says he had a patient once who nearly lost a leg to athlete's foot. Which is... reassuring?

In their small talk, we finally learn the baby's name: "Delia". It's from somebody's "Aunt Delia" who was the "first woman in our hometown to run for office". Wow, like, I guess some political stuff is going on up in here. Maybe? What could it all mean? And they wouldn't be trying to emulate the whole Damien (Demon) thing with Delia (Devil), now would they?

Anyway, here comes the obligatory baptism scene. And as I'm sure you've already guessed, Baby Delia goes nuts with the crying and the screaming when that holy water touches her. It burns us!

A little later on, the priest who performed the baptism is all alone, cleaning up, and suddenly there's a rumbling and loud Latin singing on the soundtrack. The score to this movie is mostly a cheapo re-recording of Jerry Goldsmith's original Omen theme, complete with the Chartreuse! Ennui! Artoo! Anywho! Latin chanting.

And, gee, a mysterious wind blows out all the votive candles. Who'da thunk that would happen? Ultimately, the priest collapses and dies. That'll learn him to stress out evil babies with his gosh-durn holy water!

Up next: The Delia Grows Up Montage! In short order we see: The Yorks by the Christmas tree! Hubby with a big bulky video camera as Delia takes her first steps! Faye and Delia walking out from behind a rotating bookshelf (a rotating bookshelf? What is this, Scooby-Doo?)! Mother and daughter showing off their matching ugly floral print dresses!

Montages rule!

After this, it's time for one of many random "political maneuvering" scenes, featuring Hubby York. It turns out some congressman has resigned in disgrace, after being photographed in a hotel tryst with (the closing credits call her this, not me) an "Oriental Hooker".

Hubby York is encouraged to run for that guy's vacated seat in Congress. And the guy doing the encouraging is an eyebrow-less balding redheaded guy, played by the eyebrow-less balding redheaded actor Don S. Davis. (He was a "hey! It's that guy!" for years before landing the role of General Hammond on Stargate SG-1.)

Most of the "political" scenes in the movie are just like this one: vague and perfunctory, always two men drinking brandy snifters in front of a fireplace, talking about stuff with no relevance to the plot. Obviously, it's to show that, yes, Hubby York has a political career. But I think it's possible to get this without watching five or six of these pointless scenes.

Next, we find out Sister Yvonne is really obsessed with York's rise to power and election to Congress, and is continually pasting newspaper headlines into a scrapbook. And obviously not for any "gosh I knew him way back when he was adopting babies from me" sort of thing.

For reasons never explained, she heads over to the Yorks' house. A birthday party is going on and Delia, now a toddler, stares out a window and sees Sister Yvonne approaching. She begins chewing the head of her Barbie doll [!] and this scares Sister Yvonne so much that she runs off and never comes back.

Hey, look! It's the Token Black Friends! They both express their surprise at the massive, evil bite mark in Barbie's face. (Each using up their one line of dialogue, unfortunately.) The Doc is there, too. He takes one look at the deformed Barbie head and quips, "She's real rough on prom queens!" Okay, whatever. I guess that Barbie is wearing a sash that says "Prom Queen", or something, so I'm assuming his PhD is in Stating the Obvious.