The arrival of The First Omen, the prequel to 1976’s The Omen (one of the better post-Exorcist ‘demonic child’ horror movies) couldn’t have been more unfortunately-timed, appearing in cinemas alongside the (mother) superior Immaculate which treads very similar narrative ground. The First Omen may be of interest due to its connection to a ‘franchise’ launched nearly fifty years ago, but ultimately, this is the weaker, less interesting film even if Omen obsessives (we’re assuming there are such people if only to justify the existence of the film at all) will enjoy the threads that aim to bind it to the bigger picture(s) to come.
Rome, 1971 and novitiate Margaret Daino (Nell Tiger Free, excellent) arrives to take up her post at the Vizzardeli Orphanage and is warmly greeted by Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy), Abbess Silvia (Sonia Braga), and fellow novitiate Luz (Maria Caballero). The two young nuns visit a disco, and Margaret dances with the charismatic Paolo (Andrea Arcangeli), but she blacks out and wakes the next morning with no memory of the night before. During an encounter with Father Brennan (played by Patrick Troughton in the 1976 film but here by Ralph Ineson in an ill-advised wig), Margaret is informed that radicals within the church are conspiring to bring the Antichrist to Earth in a bid to terrify people into returning to the church. Margaret’s own investigations uncover a terrible conspiracy that involves a cabal of nuns at the Orphanage and reaches to the highest levels of the church itself as well as back into Margaret’s own past.
It’s all very melodramatic and the film, directed powerfully by Arkasha Stevenson, fulfils its remit to serve as a predecessor to the 1976 original – this feels very much of the time it’s set in. But it’s a drab, beige affair that drags its heels and only really comes to life during a couple of audacious set pieces. Nods to the original are quite subtle – an early scene cleverly hints at the ultimate fate of Troughton’s older Brennan in The Omen, and there’s even a quick visual reference to Gregory Peck’s Robert Thorn. It’s inevitable that The First Omen feels old-fashioned even if by design, but its cliched cocktail of devious nuns, impregnating demons and ‘the mark of the beast’ (that’s 666 to you) ends this unnecessary exhuming of an old film series not with a bang but a wimple.
THE FIRST OMEN is in cinemas now
