Jay Rohr
The First Omen is a gruesome atmospheric nightmare. It’s also an exhausting psychological horror experience. Sometimes the film veers dangerously close to shock over substance, yet the message it conveys is an important one. Although The First Omen sometimes tries a bit too hard, viewers nowadays do need something to compel their attention. And once viewers have gone through the ringer, it’ll likely divide audiences between those it haunts and those who shun it.
The First Omen is a prequel to The Omen (1976). It follows novitiate nun Margaret played by Nell Tiger Free (Servant). She arrives in Rome, Italy during the Years of Lead, a period of protest and cultural upheaval with riots in the streets. Working at an orphanage, she soon befriends a troubled young lady named Carlita played by newcomer Nicole Sorace. It quickly becomes apparent something dark is happening with maddening malevolent forces orbiting the two women.
And that immediately becomes part of the problem. As a prequel, The First Omen loses a large amount of its potential mystery. Though the script by Tim Smith, Arkasha Stevenson, and Keith Thomas does manage to keep some secrets, anyone passingly familiar with The Omen knows where this is all going. The biggest flaw here is that The First Omen should’ve been allowed to be its own picture as opposed to part of a preexisting franchise, especially since there is a compelling enough story here on its own. Nowhere is that more apparent than the opening minutes, which are an absolutely boring attempt to echo iconic elements from The Omen. It’s only when The First Omen starts doing its own thing that the movie becomes more captivating.
Cinematically, The First Omen is a well put together picture. Director Arkasha Stevenson creates atmospheric scenes shot with a stylized creepiness that any horror film would envy. (The Nun II wishes it was The First Omen.) Gore and grotesqueries hit like a needle in the eye, flashing just long enough to be seen while not lingering enough to grow accustomed to.
That said, certain scenes have an aura of filmmakers knowingly trying to be clever. One such instance features Margaret praying, while the candles around her look like the eyes and jaws of a demon swallowing her up. It’s so utterly contrived that it becomes a cinematic example of being too clever by half. The same is true for an amazing moment where Nell Tiger Free appears briefly possessed. The performance is captivatingly creepy, but narratively it feels unnecessary making it weird for the sake of weird.
Such storyline missteps are littered throughout The First Omen. The retconned motivation for the antichrist’s birth is ridiculous when given any thought. However, it does work as a blunt statement about patriarchy and people in power doing whatever it takes to maintain that dominance. What’s worse is it’s a tired, old plot device derived from pre- and postmillennialist Christian eschatology. Something used in films like The Eighteenth Angel (1997), Constantine (2005), and Ostatnia wieczerza (2022). What’s supposed to be a dark twist is nothing more than juice from a stale fruit.
What carries The First Omen is the potency of Nell Tiger Free’s performance. Whether a moment requires her to be terrifying, vulnerable, alluring, confident, or infectiously scared, she brings that moment to life. The overall cast, which includes veteran performers such as Sônia Braga (Kiss of the Spiderwoman) and Bill Nighy (Shaun of the Dead), is never at fault. Weaknesses tend to stem from a lack of characterization. Nicole Sorace, for example, isn’t given much to do in the role of Carlita. Tawfeek Barhom (Mary Magdalene) as Father Gabriel appears, vanishes, then returns when plot necessity needs him to keep things going. Consequently, with the script so focused on Margaret, certain roles fail to develop plausible relationships. Some characters are merely plot devices moving the story along rather than relevant individuals.
The soundtrack is also way too over the top. Deafening choral music demands the audience be horrified. Perhaps it’s meant to create an oppressive atmosphere, but it just gets annoying. Meanwhile, music stings ensure viewers are startled, if not by the jump scares, the sound.
In 1997, critic Jan Avgikos wrote in Artforum, “The female body in art was mute and functioned almost exclusively as a mirror of masculine desire.” In The First Omen, director Arkasha Stevenson certainly makes the female body anything but mute. Often this is accomplished with potent, unsettling imagery. One of the several hideous birthing scenes is likely to go down in history as top tier horror, if only for the episiotomy portion. Consequently, The First Omen is a challenging film with some excellent nightmarish visuals.
However, the film never really made me feel frightened so much as defeated. It is one relentless, gory, brutalization that lacks any subtlety whatsoever. The result is an emotionally draining experience that isn’t so much horrifying as depressing. Many will likely support that aspect of the film since it inflicts an emotional state too many women experience on a daily basis, but audiences should be forewarned, The First Omen isn’t a thrill ride spook show. This is a two-hour blunt metaphor about the horrors of forced birth and the importance of bodily autonomy for women.
Personally, I don’t know if anyone could or should make such a statement in a fun way, and it is an important message these days. Genre fiction, especially horror, has a long history of tackling such culturally relevant topics. I have no doubt The First Omen will join the ranks of movies such as Martyrs (2008) or Eden Lake (2008)—horror movies that traumatize their audiences resulting in divisive takes on their quality. It’s easy to leave this film so emotionally unnerved that disgust gets projected back at the motion picture, but taking a minute to process the experience reveals a potent metaphor carried by an intense performance from Nell Tiger Free. The First Omen isn’t a fun fright flick, but it is a powerfully unnerving one.
