‘The First Omen’ Review: Atmospheric Prequel Makes Damien’s Mama Meaningful

The First Omen is a prequel to The Omen franchise, which revolves around the rise of the Antichrist and the futile efforts to stop it. Set in 1971, American, orphan and novitiate Margaret “Maggie” Daino (Nell Tiger Free) goes to Rome to become a nun at an orphanage where she meets and relates to orphan Carlita Skianna (Nicole Sorace), a young girl who behaves differently from the other children. Will she be the mother of Damien?

The First Omen begins by setting the stage and showing how Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson), the link to the 1976 foundational movie, got started on his doomed journey to stop the Antichrist. His introduction hues closest to the original with a plethora of portentous construction sites looming overhead, autumnal, foggy landscapes and a confessional divulging the conspiracy’s details. Father Brennan is merely a supporting actor, and the protagonist is Maggie, a pale, earnest, but not sanctimonious or high-handed, aspiring nun who is engaging and open with everyone that she meets. Maggie, a Pittsfield native, is also a little naïve because she never questions why she was steered to go to Rome to become a nun when there are perfectly good nunneries in the US, especially Massachusetts, which is currently in a three-way tie with New Mexico and New Jersey as the most Catholic state in the US (first prize goes to Rhode Island).  The change in locale enhances the possibility that Maggie is an unreliable narrator because of a Luciferian conspiracy, the strangeness of being in a foreign country or Maggie’s troubled childhood, which included physical and psychological abuse at the hands of nuns.

When strange things start happening, it is hard to determine if Maggie’s perception is distorted, or she is in an unhealthy environment. This film is being released at a time when there is widespread knowledge of the Church’s global admissions of all types of abuse, including mass graves of indigenous people and huge financial settlements over priests sexually abusing parishioners. Even if Maggie was not in a franchise with conspiring Beezlebub devotees, Maggie’s claims of abuse seem more likely than schizophrenia even when she hallucinates. The film never explicitly references the Magdalene asylums which were spun as places for unwed pregnant girls and women to find refuge but were sites where girls and women were exploited for their labor, and their children trafficked, i.e. slavery, but debut feature director and co-writer Arkasha Stevenson alludes to them in Maggie’s time at the orphanage. Maggie observes the treatment of a pregnant woman (Eugenia Delbue), and it parallels the treatment of Carlita in the way that their bodily autonomy is violated when strapped down and kept separated from others. Stevenson uses the Omen mythology to link real-life stories of abuse with the conception of supernatural evil, and it works because childbirth is nightmarish without any help from the devil, especially in a country which allegedly separates church from state except when the law focuses on women. The theme of the demonization of unruly women would work a smidge better if Maggie weren’t so meek, but Carlita strikes the right balance of threatening and innocent.

Only Cardinal Lawrence (Academy Award nominee Bill Nighy) helped Maggie when he was a priest at her orphanage., and Nighy plays it straight. He seems like a welcoming, affable man who cares for Maggie. The Cardinal meets her at the airport and takes her to the orphanage with the cheerful admonishment that in turbulent times, Maggie can help make the Church relevant to people who reject the Church’s authority or believe in God. The streets of Rome are filled with young people protesting, but Maggie seems to prefer the company of older people or children, not her contemporaries though she meets a strange nun around her age, Sister Anjelica (Ishtar Currie-Wilson), and fellow novitiate, roommate Luz (Maria Caballero), who is wilder than Maggie and encourages her to experiment by going to the club, drinking and flirting with guys. Maggie is not good at engaging with the opposite sex and instinctually takes a page from Carlita’s greeting to her by licking the side of his face. Luz and Maggie share an apartment, which also seems strange as opposed to staying at a convent, especially considering all the unrest in the city.

The First Omen is solid in terms of establishing an oppressive, disturbing atmosphere, but undercuts itself by moving on to more quotidian scenes as if nothing eerie happened before. Stevenson could be making the point that the corruption of Catholicism and systematic misogyny grooms people into accepting inappropriate behavior as normal, but it does not work in terms of creating a cohesive, frightening story. When a vehicle cuts a person in half, but there are no blood-soaked clothes or discussion of it. It is a shocking literal and metaphorical hit-and-run that is not thoroughly integrated into the narrative. If the film is missing a crucial element, it is casual moments of realism regarding how a person would react even if they were being gaslit. While horror works better when it serves as a metaphor for societal ills, it still must feel relatable and scare audiences, which this film does not. It goes for shock value and jump scares but fails at instilling and sustaining an unsettling feeling. Overall it feels predictable, especially with the previews giving too much away, and longer than necessary even with seamless performances and gorgeous grainy footage, which makes it feel as if it was shot in the 70s.

At times, The First Omen feels less like a part of The Omen franchise and more as if it was paying homage to other Satanic panic films such as The Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby. The prequel is addressing conception with the Prince of Darkness so perhaps the latter is understandable, but the prior is a bit on the nose with pregnancy as possession. Mimicking demonic possession undermines the theme that Satan is a less terrifying form of evil than the corruption of the Church and feels inconsistent with the jackal mythology. Stevenson gives glimpses of the not human, barely humanoid creature, and it does seem more beastly, less sentient, more mortal than the Devil in Rosemary’s Baby, which leads to some unfortunate logistical questions of how they trained this jackal-like creature to have intercourse with human women. That is a corner of Google that will not be explored lest it damage the metrics forever. (Side note: jackals are monogamous.) In some ways, Canid Mephistopheles feels like a victim in this scenario, which is where it all falls apart because that aspect of the story is not thought through. If the off-screen Damien will be evil because of systematic privilege and reinforcing power structures, then this installment does not offer a plausible reason why the females who share genetic material with him are also prone to hurting others. It also opens the door to the possibility that this beast could be a separate entity from the Biblical fallen angel originally known as morning star, which is never explored and seems like a missed opportunity.

The Omen franchise has never been a hopeful one, and Stevenson is better at depicting victims than survivors. It is an intriguing coincidence that The First Omen is released at the same time as Dune: Part Two, another film that involves women engaging in long term genetic experiments to produce an abomination. Like Hereditary, the internalized misogyny of women in power is symbolized in the goal to produce a male offspring by mating a human woman with a jackal. Stevenson fully explores the consequences of such bias in the denouement, which introduces a new element to this universe’s mythology.

The end promises more prequel sequels teasing the possibility of women as the resistance. Stevenson’s film never achieves the innovative table turning that Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria achieved in creating a woman character who wants to be the Antichrist and reimagines the meaning of Antichrist as a primordial savior figure in a demented, forlorn, hopeless world. It is not enough to make the Church seem bad. Stevenson needed to reframe the antediluvian forces from evil to primeval.

Grade: C

20th Century Studios will release The First Omen only in theaters on April 5, 2024.