I have to be honest, The Omen franchise is a series that I’ve never dipped into. I understand the basics of course, woman gives birth to the Antichrist who is a small creepy boy named Damien. Terrifying events occur around Damien, who is largely unbothered by them, or at least so I understand.

Not being hyper invested in the IP of it all made ‘The First Omen’ feel a little fresher. And that’s good because it largely seems like Director Arkasha Stevenson was much more interested in telling a complete and original story than connecting it to any Universe that may exist outside the film. That being said, there are not zero moments that feel forced to pay an homage to the cinematic devil we all worship that is franchise rights.

But we’ll get to that later, as the first act of the film is mostly a character drama! Huzzah! We meet Margaret (Nell Tiger Free), a young woman from Massachusetts who has taken up residency in an orphanage in 1971 Rome, preparing to become a nun and dedicate her life to the church. It’s interesting how little this movie talks about God considering where it’s set. Many movies like this include images of Christ on the cross, or terrified priests and parishioners frighteningly and loudly praying when they are confronted with whatever evil is bubbling beneath the surface. But as much terror is stricken on these characters, and as many challenges as they go through they very rarely actually invoke the deity they’re worshipping. To me it felt like separating the church, particularly the Catholic Church, between those that worship the Christian God, and those that worship the church itself, and the power the church holds. And indeed at one point Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson) explains to Margaret there are two churches, the one they both belong to, and one that is obsessed with power, that has put forces in motion trying to bring forth The Antichrist. The latter’s goal is focused on keeping those attendance levels high, and what better way to get people to keep the faith than to kick start Revelation.

So yes the Antichrist is yet to be born in this film, it is a prequel after all. The movie opens with the plot to birth The Antichrist’s mother having just transpired, now their evil plan is for The Devil to lay with his own daughter to bring about the end of days. Which is, to be clear, icky.

The minutia of the film isn’t what makes it work though. It’s presented at an alarmingly low pace, which gives our protagonist Margaret room to breathe and explore her faith, her trauma, and her desires outside of the church, which she’s dedicated her life to. She meets up with Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy), someone she’s known almost all her life who explains that the church’s grip is fading and that hopefully she can be an important part of bringing people back to the fold *WINK*. Let’s be real, you’re not going to cast Bill Nighy and NOT have him be the bad guy! It would be a waste of talent otherwise!

The next person we meet is Margaret’s roommate Luz (Maria Caballero), an expressive and bombastic girl compared to most, let alone the denizens of the orphanage lead by nuns. She, like Margaret, is intending to become a nun, but before she does she wants to go out on the town. She talks Margaret into going out with her, drinking a little, talking to some boys, living their life. “You should know what you’re giving up” Luz tells her. Margaret talks to a boy that buys her a drink, dances with him, and begins to black out, waking up in her bed, confused and unsure of what happened the night before. The shot of Margaret lying in bed, hair askew, looking up wondering what happened is one of the best shots in the film.

It’s good to see people bringing new takes to old IP. The Omen is a series about motherhood, and in that sense, about being a woman in general. Having a woman behind the camera to pull on these threads breathes new life into it. The terror of waking up not sure what was done to you the night before is one example of the skills Stevenson is bringing to the table. Another great scene is Margaret witnessing a birth near the orphanage she’s teaching at. The visceral nature of birth, in this case natural birth, is often lost in the glorification of it all. But here the woman is screaming in pain, and as she is screaming the camera focuses in on her vagina as a small clawed demon hand emerges out of it. Men are squeamish around the concept of normal birth in general, but make the child a Lovecraftian nightmare and we’re turning up the violent nature of the natural process to eleven. There’s another birthing scene later in the film that showcases the horror of a Cesarian Section, the violent surgical nature, zoomed in on the cutting of the flesh as we are painstakingly taken through the process. The things childbirth does to women’s bodies are not often discussed after the fact, and it’s these things that Stevenson wants to bring you closer to.

While The Omen was a horror story about motherhood, this is a horror story about pregnancy, and furthermore about unwanted pregnancy. After a character finds out she is carrying the Antichrist as a result of being raped by The Literal Devil she does what any one of us would do in that situation, she tries to have an abortion. The church intervenes and ensures that the child is born of course, a sensation I’m sure was common in the setting of 1971, but unheard of in modern society!

While it would be nice to continue to pretend that the movie existed on its own, as mentioned previously it is beholden to the F word at the end of the day. Still the performances, particularly by Nell Tiger Free and Maria Caballero, as well as deft directing from Stevenson keep the movie elevated. But after all is said and done the studio or the fans will demand a tip of the hat at the very least, and so with the last line of the movie Father Brennan let’s us know the Antichrist has a name, and with the prescribed will of someone who knew this was always going to happen, that it couldn’t shake out any other way, he looks directly to camera and says, “Damien.”

3.5/5