How on earth does anyone make a sequel bearing the 'Omen' name and come up with something as chronically unscary as this? I've seen creepier and more suspenseful episodes of TJ Hooker than this cardboard cut-out wet weekend of a kids' TV movie. The incidental music is comical, sounding like it was lifted from a particularly jaunty episode of Harry Potter:The Cartoon (if that even exists). But how and why? This is supposed to be The Omen...At least try and make it vaguely chilling. Did anyone even know what they were making? Ho hum, too many pointless questions...The original remains an utterly badass slice of full-on 70s horror, and the first 2 sequels (although flawed) at least took it somewhere still worth watching, but Omen IV is right up there with Jaws 3 and Jason Goes To Hell on the bad sequel naughty step.

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!

Damien Thorn is dead. Gene (Michael Woods) and Karen York (Faye Grant) adopt an orphan and name her Delia. Sister Yvonne at the orphanage is sure of the baby's damnation. She goes to Delia's baptism where disturbing things happen. Seven years later, Gene's star starts rising as a US Congressman. They hire new age nanny Jo Thueson. After more disturbing events, Karen hires private detective Earl Knight (Michael Lerner) to track down Delia's biological parents.Any sequel trying to continue the franchise after "The Final Conflict" is unlikely to succeed. This one does nothing other than copy from the original "The Omen" except with a girl. It even does another decapitation. It could work if the original doesn't exist. The problem is that it does exist and this is a bad homage. There are some moments of weak writing and bad cheesy music. There is nothing scary and no originality. At times, it's comical, both intentional and unintentional.

People say this movie is horrible, but I disagree. 'Return to horror high' is a horrible movie. I couldn't even finish that, but Omen 4 I easily finished.It's nothing great, it's very typical, but it has some interesting stuff in it.The ending is pretty good and makes the movie. I didn't see the ending coming, and I like that. Usually I can tell how the movie will end by about a 1/4th of the way into it. But this ending surprised me. Which makes this not horrible.Watch it with an open mind knowing it's a TV movie and you will enjoy it, at least a little.There were supposed to be more TV movies after this one, but they decided not to do it. Which if they don't make money, there is no reason why to make more. But I actually kind of like this being the final one. With Omen 3, the Antichrist dies. You can't have the Antichrist dying. At least with this movie it ends with the Antichrist alive and well. Which means that even if we don't have any more movies, we know that he is out there some where. Which is the way it should have ended. If we are supposed to believe this Revelation stuff, then the Antichrist has to bring on the ending of the world.