THE FIRST OMEN [2024]

2024, The First Omen (2024)
Directed by: Arkasha Stevenson
Written by: Arkasha Stevenson, Keith Thomas, Tim Smith
Starring: Nell Tiger Free, Ralph Ineson, Sonia Braga, Tawfeek Barhom

USA

AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY. DVD AND DIGITAL

RUNNING TIME: 119 mins

REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera

In Rome, 1971, Father Brennan presses Father Harris about an occult conspiracy; Harris gives him a photograph of a baby with the name “Scianna” inscribed. Harris is then killed when a falling pipe splits his head open. Meanwhile American novitiate Margaret Daino arrives at the Vizzardeli Orphanage. Her roommate is Luz, who seems to want to explore herself before handing her life over to God, but she’s more interested in Carlita, a child plagued by bad visions who’s kept away from the others. Soon she herself seems to see unsettling things which may not be actually there, but still joins Luz on a night out, where she dances with a guy then awakes in a bed with no memory of what happened. Brennan warns her about Carlita, saying “evil things” will happen, and, when eerie happenings increase, tells her about the Catholic Church’s rather drastic plan to inspire a new era of faith….

Well it’s been 16 years since we last had an Omen movie, and it’s one a lot of franchise fans want to forget because it was little more but a scene by scene remake of the classic 1976 original which first brought Damien Thorn to cinema screens to terrify audiences, at a time where a lot of horror fans were probably bemused by the way major studios were giving big budgets to what were essentially upscale exploitation pics. Say what you want about some of the other remakes of great franchise starters like Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but at least they tended to try and put a different spin on things, However, putting a different spin on things is certainly something which this prequel does. My heart sank when I first heard about this, because in today’s largely creatively bankrupt Hollywood prequels, have become far too common and lack much excitement because you know what’s going to happen after. But in this case the end product is really rather good, certainly better than it perhaps ought to be. Quite bravely, it makes little attempt to feel like an Omen film, and doesn’t go down the route of the main emphasis being a lot of creative freak deaths, even though the temptation must have been strong to do that, seeing how the influence of the original trilogy can be seen in things like the Final Destination series. No, it goes more for mood and atmosphere, and in terms of physical stuff more body horror than big death scenes, the idea of the fear of pregnancy being exploited stronger than in any horror movie for some time, in a film which becomes truly intense indeed. Directed with some style by Arkasha Stevenson, with cinematographer Aaron Morton bringing a great look to it all, it does fall down when it changes aspects of Omen lore, which I’m sure some fans are livid about!

And I will say that the first scene, while already showing a keen visual eye and a knack for well chosen settings, doesn’t bode well, because it’s sort of humorous, and humorous isn’t what an Omen film should be, surely? Leave that to other, crasser productions. A priest is walking through a cemetery while some guys are high up on a large building trying to put a glass painting up, and we already expect some kind of fall to occur very soon. The priest, Father Brennan – and yes, supposedly the same character from The Omen though so different it’s easy to forget that – is visiting a Father Harris. “I told you not to look for me” says Harris. Something very bad has been done by the church, something which involved impregnating a woman who, flashback shots show us, was tied down with a black cloth covering her face during the act. “Please don’t let it touch me” she pleads while monstrous heavy breathing can be faintly heard. Harris gives Brennan a photograph of a girl before starting to leave. Those clumsy workmen drop the painting, but all the falling glass seems to miss the two priests, until we cut to the back of Harris’s head and it having been split open while Harris grins and pulls faces. We seem to be invited to laugh, and one wonders two things; did we need this prologue at all, and will the rest of the film will be like this, but thankfully it isn’t, immediately adopting a sober tone as our heroine arrives in Rome at a time where protests are rampant and the Church has become outdated in the eyes of many in a rapidly changing world. She’s met at the airport by Father Gabriel and Cardinal Lawrence, then at the orphanage by Sister Sylvia who shows her around, including the “birthing facilities” for the wayward girls staying. I’ll say right now that the real life Villa Parisi  is a simply fabulous location. It seemed somewhat familiar to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I reckon some fans of Italian horror will recognise it straight away from a classic “so bad it’s good” zombie movie from 1981!

Margaret is immediately drawn to Carlita, who was abandoned by her parents as a small child, and who’s now plagued by bad visions, often draws what she sees, and is very shy except when she licks Margaret’s face. Apparently she recently hurt another girl zo is largely confined to her room and even sometimes tied down to her bed. Then there’s her roommate Luz, who’s also about to take the vow but wants to wear secular clothes for just a bit longer and go out and have fun She invites Margaret for a night out, and the two dance in a club in a very well structured and shot sequence, colours changing as Margaret gets more seduced by the music and the movement. Margaret dances with a man named Paolo before blacking out. She awakens the next day, via a terrific shot of her face on the pillow with her hair looking like Medusa’s snakes, with no memory of what happened, though Luz tells her that she got pretty close to Paolo and had to whisk her away from him before something really foolish took place. Later on Brennan shows up and warns her about Carlita, saying that bad stuff will take place. She spots Carlita showing someone a drawing of a pregnant woman being restrained; moments later, a nun named Anjelica self-immolates and hangs herself, in another superbly shot and staged set piece, what with the kids falling down as they play a version of “Ring a Ring o Roses” just before Anjelica kills herself. Margaret feels more and more ill at ease in this place but of course still wonders about at night in search of the origins of cries or screams, and begins to have visions herself. Brennan explains that radicals within the church, desperate to regain power against the rise of secularism, seek to bring about the Antichrist to create fear and drive people back to the church. The plot turns increase from here on in, though one supposed twist may not surprise you much, as the leisurely pace speeds up towards a genuinely frightening final act.

There seem to be influences from several sources including Possession and To The Devil….A Daughter, and some attempt has been made for The First Omen to resemble an Italian chiller from the early ’70s, but without laying it on too heavily, which for me is the better way to do it really, because the film can still have its own vibe, and this one definitely does that. Stevenson is also very good with the horror moments; an early jump scare, in a movie refreshingly low on them, really works, and not long after that is a really nightmarish scene where Margaret observes through a window a birth which climaxes with a monstrous hand coming out of a vagina which I’m astounded made its way into a ’15’ rated film here in the UK, though perhaps more disturbing is the way the woman screams before being given laughing gas which causes her to be happy and see the funny side of things – but only for a few seconds, after which she starts screaming again. The emphasis on Margaret’s psychological state throughout means that in some cases we’re not sure if what she sees is happening is actually happening, nor are we told why certain things are taking place, though I guess we can sort of explain the latter as being the Devil’s influence, while we’re often not far from the world of Italian horror anyway where things tend to be a bit more random. The last half an hour truly raises the terror and it’s very full-on for a mainstream horror, even with the centerpiece yucky scene having to be cut by a few seconds in the United States at the behest of the MPAA. I really wasn’t sure about the ’15’ rating at all, though I suppose actual violence is quite minimal.

Watching a film the second time around often reveals things that you didn’t notice before, especially if you’ve virtually trained yourself to notice more stuff in the course of doing this reviewing lark. Here, it truly became apparent to me how much care Stevenson and Morton took with their compositions, and even arrangement of things within the frame, such as when Margaret is praying under an altar, and the camera pans out to reveal the positioning of the candles to resembles a face with fangs where Margaret centered between them. However, praise for some things has to be balanced by criticism of – well, only one thing really but it’s a major thing – the way this story doesn’t always connect with what will happen next, as show by the Omen trilogy [was there even a fourth?]. Granted, we seem to live in an age of retconning, with Star Wars fans especially having a lot to complain about right now, but some of the things in The First Omen just seem like carelesssness. I debated with myself whether to go deep into this, and eventually decided not to because this is still really a new film, and a lot of young people who watch this won’t have seen the earlier instalments [but will hopefully go and do so if they enjoy it] . However, I can mention the fact that this movie is set in 1971, just prior to the first scene of The Omen, which in that film actually took place in 1970, as seen by the gravestones. That Brennan is quite a different character, even being on a different side [okay, I do admit, he could have changed;. And that the nature of Damien Thorn’s parentage is changed, from gender reversal to somebody now being alive who we’d previously told was dead – though the latter is a good setup for a sequel or too which could be very different from earlier sequels. And in terms of general plot questions; why did the cult seems to leave an animal to die, an animal they’d surely need if a particular person died?

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