William S. Taylor | Through the Shattered Lens

I am not one for camping.

I’m actually kind of alone amongst my family as far as that’s concerned. All three of my sisters enjoy spending the night outdoors, listening to sounds of nature and looking up at the stars. They know how to set up tents and make campfires and they enjoy hiking and rafting and exploring the great outdoors. Myself, I do enjoy occasionally spending the weekend up at Lake Texoma and I like the fact that, even though we live in the city, we still occasionally get to see wildlife running around. I think possums are cute. A few days ago, I squealed with delight when I saw that there was a raccoon hanging out in one of our backyard trees. (“Don’t go near that thing, Lisa Marie!” Erin snapped as I reached for the den door.) Growing up, I spent time in both the country and the city. While I love living in the city, there’s still a part of me that’s still a country girl. That said, I definitely prefer sleeping inside to outside. The inside is safe. The inside is comfortable. The inside is free of creepy bugs that crawl on the ground.

Watching 1988’s Shoot to Kill definitely did not do much to change my opinion about camping. In this thriller from director Roger Spottiswoode, Sidney Poitier plays Warren Stantin, an FBI agent who is obsessed with capturing a sadistic criminal who blackmails people into doing his work for him. At the start of the film, the extortionist has forced a jeweler to break into his own jewelry store by taking the jeweler’s wife hostage. Stantin’s attempt to capture the extortionist leads to the jeweler’s wife taking a bullet in the eye. (AGCK! Seriously, this guy is mean!) Stantin traces the man to Washington State, where he discovers that the extortionist has committed another murder and stolen the victim’s identity. The extortionist is now a member of a five-man fishing party that is being led by a local guide, Sarah Renell (Kirstie Alley). Stantin teams up with Sarah’s partner, Jonathan Knox (Tom Berenger), and the two of them attempts to track down the group before the murderer among them makes his move.

The action cuts back-and-forth, between Sarah’s party and Knox and Stantin. Most viewers will probably be able to quickly figure out which member of Sarah’s party is the killer but director Spottiswoode still creates a little suspense by casting actors like Richard Masur, Andrew Robinson, and Clancy Brown as the suspects. All three of the actors have played their share of sinister characters. (Andrew Robinson was the Scorpio Killer, for God’s sake!) While Sarah leads the murderer though the wilderness, Knox teaches Stantin how to survive in the great outdoors. As is typical with films like this, Knox and Stantin go from disliking each other to depending on each other. Have you ever wanted to see Sidney Poitier get into a verbal altercation with a bear? This is the film for you!

Shoot to Kill is a superior genre film. The story’s predictable but it’s told so well that it doesn’t matter. Kirstie Alley, Tom Berenger, and Sidney Poitier all give good performances as sympathetic characters. As for the actor who turns out to be the killer, he gives a performance that is, at times, absolutely terrifying. Shoot to Kill is an entertaining thriller. Just don’t watch it if you’re going camping the next day.

“Why am I watching this crap?”

That was the question that I asked myself many times last night as I watched Omen IV: The Awakening.

Seriously, it is just the WORST* and, if not for my own need to be a completist, I probably would have stopped watching after the first ten minutes. But you know what? I love movies, I love this site, and even more importantly — I LOVE YOU! And I would do anything for you so I watched Omen IV: The Awakening so you wouldn’t have to.

Of course, when would you ever have to? I probably should have considered that before I sat down to watch the film.

ANYWAY — let’s keep this quick. The Omen IV: The Awakening was made for television and was originally broadcast way back in 1991. It tells the story of Virginia Congressman Gene York (Michael Woods) and his wife, Karen (Faye Grant, who is currently in the news because of a tape that’s surfaced of her ex-husband Stephen Collins confessing to being a child molester). Gene and Karen cannot have children so they adopt a baby from a bunch of nuns. What they don’t suspect is that some of the nuns are actually in league with Satan and that their new daughter is actually the child of Damien Thorn!

Seven years later, they’ve named their daughter Delia and Delia has grown up to be something of a sociopath. A bunch of new age hippie types suspect the truth about Delia but, whenever they get close to revealing that truth, they end up getting killed in freak accidents. Meanwhile, Gene insists nothing is wrong while Karen…

Oh, forget it. This movie is so bad that it’s painful to even try to describe the plot.

Let’s just say that this is an amazingly bad movie that has none of the power of the first Omen. Nor is it as unintentionally fun as Damien: Omen II. And none of the actors do as good as job as Sam Neill did in The Final Conflict. Instead, it’s just a rather dull film where the tedium is only occasionally interrupted by somebody dying a terrible death. There are two effective sequences — one in which a private detective (Michael Lerner) is chased by demonic spirits and another where a snake handler gets distracted just long enough to get bitten a few thousand times. Otherwise, Omen IV: The Awakening deserves its terrible reputation.

AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS!

(Which probably won’t be hard since I imagine that the only way you could be tricked into watching it would be if you’re one of those film bloggers who insists on being a completist…)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TBDZPRiJ0A

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* Yes, it’s so bad that it gets the all caps treatment.