Review of Omen IV: The Awakening (1991) by Bradley F — 13 Jan 2009

This movie is decent fare. It's good to watch, though only the last ten minutes or so of the film seem original in any way. The movie has a forced feeling to it, as if the writers were trying hard to find a way to revive the popular movie series, as well as make it hip to the times. The majority of the film actually seems like a rehash of the first two movies, with many of the same situations occurring, just with a different set of people. In the opening credits you'll also see that the movie reuses sound tracks from the third movie as well. That by itself detracts from the overall "scary" factor of the movie. It's hard to jump when you already know what to expect.

I'm not totally disappointed. It's a great idea to revive the storyline and take it further. Who isn't excited by a movie, or in this case a movie series, that depicts the events of the last days in dramatic fashion? The problem is that most of this fourth installment is rather bland and a bit confusing (not in a good way) until the pieces come together at the end. For a while I even thought that Omen IV was actually some sort of remake of Omen 1, but portraying the Antichrist as a girl.

So, Omen IV is a bit of a drag, but it's a decent lead up to what should be an interesting fifth film.