‘The First Omen’: Review

Dir: Arkasha Stevenson. US. 2024. 119mins

Tracing the origins of the demonic Damien, The First Omen is a grim, often upsetting prequel to 1976’s The Omen. Nell Tiger Free is appropriately terrified as a young American who moves to Italy to become a nun, only to discover that the orphanage where she will be working is filled with devilish secrets. First-time feature filmmaker Arkasha Stevenson crafts impressive levels of style and atmosphere, but the tense proceedings never entirely scare away the suspicion that an enormous amount of effort has been put into reigniting a franchise that may not be worth the trouble.

Several nagging narrative similarities to the recent Sydney Sweeney picture Immaculate. 

The First Omen opens in the US and UK on April 5, hoping to re-launch a classic horror property in much the same way as The Exorcist: Believer last year. This is the sixth instalment in the series, which started with the 1976 Oscar-winner, but it is the first film since the 2006 remake, also titled The Omen. Horror aficionados who want to savour some dread and bad vibes will be pleased, but those same fans may notice several nagging narrative similarities to the recent Sydney Sweeney picture Immaculate. 

Set in 1971, five years before The Omen, the film stars Free as Margaret, who has just landed in Rome, enthusiastic about devoting her life to God, encouraged by her mentor the kindly Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy). Margaret grew up an orphan, battling mental-health issues and what she describes as “an active imagination,” and now she wants to help disadvantaged children like herself. But she quickly notices that something seems wrong about this seemingly saintly place — including the fact that a troubled 11-year-old, Carlita (Nicole Sorace), is inexplicably ill-treated by the nuns. Are Carlita’s disturbing drawings a clue into what is actually going on?

Television director Stevenson (Channel Zero, Legion) tries to recapture the elegant foreboding of 1970s horror pictures such as The Omen and its predecessor The Exorcist, whose blockbuster success launched a wave of religious-themed fright films. Cinematographer Aaron Morton and production designer Eve Stewart ensure that the images radiate maximum gloom, while composer Mark Korven constructs a score littered with quivering strings and anguished orchestral choirs – it’s as if The Rapture is imminent.

Those familiar with The Omen will be able to guess The First Omen’s ultimate purpose, which is to illustrate how the serenely evil boy Damien (played by Harvey Spencer Stephens in the original) came to be. As a result, this prequel features two simultaneous mysteries: what precisely is going on in this orphanage, and what does it have to do with the future antichrist? To her credit, Stevenson does not overload The First Omen with callbacks to the 1976 film, mostly trying to craft a standalone story about a struggling soul who locates her steeliness once her life is threatened.

Free goes a long way towards papering over the picture’s shortcomings. Initially timid and cautious, Margaret blossoms when she realises that Carlita needs protecting, bonding with the girl over their shared abandonment and emotional trauma. The First Omen becomes a tale of female empowerment, with Cardinal Lawrence and the Church symbolising a patriarchal, regressive Catholicism, and Free’s growing ferocity is impressive. As Margaret arrives at her fate in a hyperbolic finale, the actress matches the picture’s overwrought theatrics, delivering a performance of nearly animalistic intensity. 

Unfortunately, Free’s commitment only underlines what is otherwise formulaic about this franchise reboot. As the stern, possibly villainous Sister Silvia, Sonia Braga gets a lot of mileage out of constantly glaring at Margaret, and much of the rest of The First Omen similarly plays on stale horror tropes. (Ralph Ineson is assigned the role of the grizzled excommunicated priest who befriends Margaret.) Especially so close on the heels of Immaculate, also about a naive, devout American who gets more than she bargained for by travelling to Italy to spend time with nuns, The First Omen’s scares feel brutal but also perfunctory. 

In truth, the film to which this prequel is most indebted is not The Omen but another horror classic — revealing which one would ruin multiple twists. But let it be said that Margaret’s story, which is supposed to be suffused with tragedy, is eventually just a footnote meant to set the stage for the events of The Omen. As punishing as some of The First Omen’s terrors are, they are quickly forgotten in service of answering questions about Damien (and leaving the door open for further sequels) that undercut Free’s gripping turn. Forget the devil: the film ends up being seduced by its own Prince of Darkness; Hollywood’s insatiable desire for fertile intellectual property.