Forget that whole Armageddon thing from the close of The Omen series’ third chapter, 1981’s not-final Final Conflict. Ten years later, 20th Century Fox dropped an enjoyable bundle of trash named Omen IV: The Awakening at America’s collective front porch, rang the doorbell and bolted to hide behind the neighbor’s bushes and snicker.
Antichrist politician (redundant) Damien Thorn is long dead, but the British telly reporter he had mad, bruising sex with in The Final Conflict was impregnated with his demon seed. The result is a baby girl whom Catholic nuns are more than eager to push into the arms of doting adoptive parents (doting optional), what with “666” embossed on the hater tot’s palm. As the York family, Faye Grant (Internal Affairs) and some guy with feathered hair (Michael Woods, TV’s NightMan) essay those roles, and … well, they’re not particularly giving it their all. If the word “shrill” didn’t exist, it would have to be invented for Grant’s performance.
Delia, the second-generation Antichrist, is played in grade-school form by Asia Vieira (TV’s FlashForward). See if you can spot her mustache.
This Delia girl is one mean little bitch, tormenting a fat kid in her class before moving on to meatier targets, like her psychic-obsessed nanny, whom she forces out of a second-story window and onto a merry-go-round below. Delia also uses her satanic powers to cause a nosy P.I. (Michael Lerner, Barton Fink) to meet an untimely fate in the form of a swinging wrecking ball. There’s another decapitation, too, but it pales next to David Warner’s from the original Omen, probably because this so-called Awakening was made IV the Fox network (but released theatrically overseas). It was directed by two guys, Turbulence 3’s Jorge Montesi and Halloween 5’s Dominique Othenin-Girard, which should explain everything. —Rod Lott