Children Hate You Week: Day 1

There's not much the crew here at Final Girl (the crew consisting of...me) loves more than an event week. I've had a few event weeks in the past, but I've anticipated none more than what begins today. Ladies and gents, I give you:

CHILDREN HATE YOU WEEK!

Sure, sure, I can hear you now..."Stacie, I believe the children are our future. We must teach them well and let them lead the way!"...to which I answer "Pfft!" If there's one thing I've learned from the movies, it's that children hate you and if given half a chance, they'll kill you mercilessly in their quest for world domination. In a bid to win their favor prior to the uprising, let's take this week and celebrate the murderous moppets, shall we? Bring on the killer kiddies, I say, for it's Children Hate You Week!

Careful there, Charles Nelson Reilly, or you'll be the first on their list.

After three movies featuring Damien Thorn as the Antichrist, 20th Century Fox decided to go all equal opportunity and feature a female spawn of Satan in The Omen IV: The Awakening, aka The Omen IV: The Omening, aka The Omen IV: Attack of the She-Omen!

This made-for-TV flick is essentially a complete re-telling of the original Omen story...with a She-Omen. Faye Grant and Michael Woods star as Karen and Gene York, an up-and-coming political power couple who can't seem to conceive a baby. They adopt young Delia from a nunnery and then...things start to happen. Sort of, anyway. Sure, we're in TV-land here, so I understand that the action needs to be...shall we say...tame, but Delia is supposed to be the friggin' Antichrist! Shouldn't that mean she does a bit more than bite dolls, scare horses, and induce heart attacks in priests?

Yeah, I said "bite dolls". I know it's supposed to be scary, but...well...

The Yorks hire a nanny, Jo (Ann Hearn), to look after Delia, who's becoming more and more troublesome, what with all the glaring and all the...all the...OK, she doesn't do much more than glare. But she sure is troublesome!

It seems Jo is one of those "New Age" types- she's got a crystal around her neck, she talks about auras, and she probably smells like some combination of patchouli and cat pee. Jo knows something is up when her crystals all turn black- There's Something About Delia, all right. Jo takes Delia to a Psychic Fair, to which Delia protests vehemently. Call me Antichrist Jr, but I don't blame her one bit. Who wants to walk around looking at macrame dreamcatchers and shit sold by stinky New Age hippies? Not me. Delia does the only sensible thing- she sets the Psychic Fair on fire. I think. It's hard to tell; one minute Delia and Jo are walking around and all the psychics act afraid. The next minute, the fair is on fire. Whether it was Delia's doings or not, I must applaud the effort.

Eventually Delia gets tired of Jo's shit and, in finest Omen fashion, we're treated to The Plummeting Nanny. Wheeee!

Where are the girl's parents during all this, you ask? Well, Gene is clueless about Delia's "misbehavior" and is rising fast in the political world. And Karen...is...pregnant! How can this be? I tells ya, it gets a bit confusing. There's fetuses within fetuses like so many Satanic Russian Nesting Dolls for starters. Nevermind all that, though. Karen is sure that Delia has nefarious motives and so she decides to figure things out, to stop Delia from whatever it is she is going to do, to have her baby, and to save the world. Can Karen do it? Uh, excuse me, we're talking about Faye Grant here. You know, freedom fighter Dr. Julie Parrish from V? Yeah, that's right. I think she has a little experience saving the world from beings who are not what they seem.

Don't you think Faye Grant and Marc Singer should be in everything? I do. But I digress.

Omen IV, I liked you so much more when you were The Omen. I give it 4 out of 10 seen one Antichrists, you've seen 'em alls.