Grab your crucifixes (or anything holy), because a new Omen movie arrives in UK and US cinemas today. The film – which is directed and co-written by Arkasha Stevenson – stars Nell Tiger Free, Sônia Braga, Ralph Ineson, Bill Nighy, and Charles Dance; is titled The First Omen; and follows the story of young woman in Rome, who stumbles upon a plot to bring about the Antichrist.
In the movie, the year is 1971 and Sister Margaret Daino travels from the US to begin a new life at an abbey in Rome. Here she will live with fellow nuns, taking care of orphans and young pregnant women.
Shortly after arriving, Margaret meets a mysterious young girl named Carlita. The girl is seemingly troubled and is constantly isolated from the other children.
Over the coming days, Margaret begins to experience some unusual visions and situations, which could be connected to Carlita. She is also approached by a priest named Father Brennan, who believes a sinister plot is in motion to bring the Antichrist into being.
For those not familiar with The Omen movie series, The First Omen is not actually the first Omen movie. Chronologically it is, as the events of this film take place prior to the events of the 1976 horror classic, The Omen, but in terms of its release this is the sixth movie overall.
The good news is, The First Omen is not the worst of the six movies. That accolade goes to the 1991 TV movie, Omen IV: The Awakening (although the 2006 remake of The Omen is pretty rubbish too).
The not-so good news is, The First Omen is a bit of a mixed bag. The first half of the film is largely quite dull, and its set pieces are uninspiring, leaving the second half to carry the picture and deliver most of the good stuff.
The film benefits from some great cinematography, which runs through both halves, but the story is so weak to begin with that it causes some early boredom to set in. As a result, while The First Omen isn’t bad, it’s nowhere near as good as the first film, and I’d argue it’s not much better than Omen III: Final Conflict (1981).
The reason the first half of the movie doesn’t work is because it faffs about too much and is too slow to unfold its story. There’s something dark going on in Rome, we the audience have a rough idea what that darkness is, but the movie takes too long to get to anything good.
During this first hour there are some jump scares and a bit of spooky imagery, but not a lot else. It all feels very generic and those entering the auditorium a little late would be forgiven for thinking they’ve walked into a screening of The Nun.
Even when the movie attempts to inject some excitement through the use of set pieces, the film’s action-orientated sequences fall flat. Why? Because all of them are variations of sequences from The Omen and nothing more.
Remember when Father Brennan got impaled by a lightning rod during The Omen? Well, there’s a similar scaffolding-related incident here.
Do you recall the sequence in which Damien’s nanny hangs herself during a birthday party in the original film? Well, the same sort of thing occurs in The First Omen too.
There’s even a scene involving someone being sliced up, in a slight reworking of the decapitation scene from The Omen. The sequence plays out differently (and is nowhere near as shocking), but this is clearly the inspiration.
Rather than crafting some new death scenes and gags, the movie delves into a well-worn playbook and it’s frustrating to see it all repeated endlessly on screen. Recreating one scene as a nod to the original film is passable, but recreating three is simply lazy scriptwriting and this hurts the movie when it should be winning over audiences.
When The First Omen moves away from all the repetitive guff and slides into the second half, things improve considerably. It’s during this section of the movie that the truth about the Antichrist is revealed and it suddenly becomes a much more interesting film.
There is a discussion about why the Antichrist is being brought into existence and there is a wince-inducing birth sequence which is suitably horrid. It’s all very creepy, it’s quite dark, there are shades of Rosemary’s Baby being chucked at the screen, and it’s all unnerving and unsettling in just the right way.
Suddenly, after the film got off to a ropey start, The First Omen finds its second wind. The sinister forces behind the coming of the Antichrist are revealed, and it feels like something is being added to the overall mythology of the series.
Rather than just constant call-backs and fan service, the film enters into territory that it should have been delving into from the start. Sure, it’s late to the party, but better late than never, right?
Outside of the above, there is the aforementioned cinematography from Aaron Morton, which brings out the beauty amongst the evil, and the film benefits from a good cast. Nell Tiger Free is excellent as Margaret, while Ralph Ineson is strong in the role of Father Brennan, doing a decent impersonation of Patrick Troughton from The Omen.
Chuck in the right atmosphere, helped along by the film’s score, as well as some ‘70s fashion and scene setting, and The First Omen isn’t bad. It has problems, and these do cause the film to walk some very shaky ground at times, but it could be far worse.
That said, while The First Omen gets a pass, because there are more positives than negatives, I’m still not totally won over by it and I’m really unsure who this film is aimed at? I can’t see young audiences being all that arsed about it, and I would expect older audiences would much prefer to view the original.
This leaves die-hard fans of the series to dissect and debate its merits, and rank it accordingly. However, I’ll save everyone some time and plonk it firmly in the middle with a three-star rating.
At present, there are two nun-related horror movies in cinemas. The First Omen is one, while the other is Immaculate.
Both of these films share a number of similarities, leaving audiences to decide which is the best one to spend their hard earned cash on. As far as I’m concerned, Immaculate is the better of the two, but if you do plump for The First Omen there is some entertainment to be had.
However, don’t expect the second coming of horror cinema because you won’t get it. By walking a similar path to the original, as well as one or two other horror movies, The First Omen does not usher in the dawning of a new age, it simply offers up some watchable and occasionally likeable moments.
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