TV Reviews : ‘Omen IV’: The Devil Is Back, Doing His Thing

If memory serves correctly, “Omen III: The Final Conflict” ended not only with devilish Damien vanquished but with no less an epilogue than the second coming of Christ. Alas, that glorious sight in the heavens must have been a mere trick of the light. Apocalyptic evil has been unleashed again in the feeble form of “Omen IV: The Awakening,” surely one of the least entertaining motion pictures ever made for television.

Shot in Canada on an apparent shoestring budget, with no name-talent in front of or behind the cameras, “Omen IV” (at 8 tonight on KTTV Channel 11) is very nearly a small-scale remake of the first two “Omens,” but with a little girl Antichrist adopted into a politically ambitious family this time.

Bad seed? Problem child? Why, 8-year-old Delia (Asia Vieria) is so demonic she makes a bully who taunts her at school wet his pants. It gets worse, of course, with the usual beheadings, attacks by devil dogs that break through solid doors, wrecking balls in the gut and other fun stuff befalling heroes and incidental characters alike.

Suspense is kept to an absolute minimum by adherence to the time-tested “Omen” plot: Anyone who crosses the kid or takes an unseemly interest in the Antichrist dies in a freak accident.

The direction, credited to Jorge Montesi and Dominique Othenin-Girard--with “action sequences” by producer Harvey Bernhard--is as witless, visually dull and slow-moving as Brian Taggert’s sub-pedestrian script would demand.