The First Omen is a prequel to 1976’s The Omen, showing the horrors in Rome preceding the birth of the antichrist, Damien. We follow Marget, a sister who comes from America to work for an orphanage as she learns the dark secret the church is hiding. Margret is played to perfection by Nell Tiger Free, who helps save the Omen franchise, which has been plagued by bad sequels and remakes.Â
With the direction of Arkasha Stevenson, The First Omen is a breath of fresh air compared to most horror movies that have come out in recent years. She creates a fascinatingly horrifying atmosphere that relies on terrifying subject matter and gets phenomenal work out of her entire cast. Italy has been a common backdrop for religious horror yet in movies like this and Immaculate, it still feels unexplored with an underlying feeling of creepiness.Â
Nell Tiger Free gives an all-time performance as Margret. She comes from an orphanage where she was haunted by visions her mind convinced her were real. When she arrives in Italy and the orphanage, she quickly forms a bond with the troubled Carlita, who exhibits similar erratic behavior as she did when she was young. The more time she spends at the orphanage, the more her visions begin to resurface. When she becomes suspicious of what the nuns are doing, all hell breaks loose. There is a specific scene that kicks off the third act that is nothing short of bone-chilling, thanks to her performance.
As a prequel to The Omen, there is only one job: tell the tale of how Damien was born and what happened to his mother. The movie did that and so much more. All the characters feel so deep and prove that they are much more than what they appear to be. One character that I liked a lot was Ralph Inneson’s Father Brennan. He is the one who knows about the birth of the antichrist and spends the entire movie trying to solve that mystery with Margret.Â
Carlita, played by Nicole Sorace, appears to be evil, given her erratic behavior and visions of the events playing out. Yet while the nuns and her peers cast her out, she opens up to Margret about what she feels and knows and becomes a catalyst to solving the mystery.Â
One thing I liked a lot about The Omen is how every time someone was getting closer to exposing Damien, they would suffer a gruesome death of fate. The first scene of this movie made me think we’d get more of that, but that wasn’t the case to my disappointment. I think it made sense given the antichrist hadn’t been born yet, but I still think it could’ve worked. The movie does have some pretty graphic death scenes but they felt more natural than the first movie.Â
However, this movie makes up for that by making the entire audience squirm with body horror. There are a lot of pregnancies in the movie and there’s no easier way to get me nauseous than showing a man cut open into a woman,Â
The movie does a good job of throwing as many curveballs at us as possible. Going in, I expected that Margret was going to end up being Damien’s mother. Yet immediately, once Carlita was introduced, it made me stretch my mind to think if the timelines would align. But what mattered more was the birth of Damien and how it came to be. I won’t spoil the motivation, but I felt like it made a ton of sense, given the setting and the constant civil rights protests and riots.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The First Omen is a horrifying entry into the franchise while standing out as a great movie on its own. The movie gets bold and crazy and it succeeds at making every person watching physically uncomfortable. It is a terrifying time to watch, but if you have the stomach for some female body horror, this is a must-watch.
