‘The First Omen’ Prequel of ’70s Film

There’s nothing that stirs up controversy and division among film fans and critics alike quite like films centered around sacrilege and demonic possession.

“The Omen” was one of those late ’70s films that served as a predecessor to the 1980s’ so-called “Satanic Panic.” A great film for its time, it still holds a solid 85% rating on RottenTomatoes.com. Conversely, the three sequels that followed the original all received terrible ratings (as is common with a lot of popular horror franchises).

It’s safe to say that when I first heard that a prequel to the original film was being developed, I was hesitant to get excited. I firmly believe when it comes to horror films specifically, big production studios should leave well enough alone. And, in my humble opinion, a solid 85% rating nearly 50 years after its release qualifies the original Omen as more than “well enough.”

My mind was changed immediately after I saw the trailer for “The First Omen.”

I’m a fan of films that push the boundaries of acceptability and “normality.” That’s likely why I am drawn to experimental horror like a moth to a flame.

The trailer for “The First Omen” had me hooked; I knew instantly I would love it the movie. And after a few long months of anticipation, I was finally able to see it.

Here’s my review. WARNING: There will be spoilers ahead!

The opening images are bleak and set the tone for the entire film. We are quickly (re)introduced to Father Brennan, a character from the original Omen. Brennan attempts to goad another priest, Father Harris, into revealing information about a mysterious occult conspiracy within the church, but Harris is killed in a freak accident when a stained-glass window being installed in a chapel crashes, shatters, and splits the back of his head open.

The graphic violence only gets worse as the film goes on! And, the visuals we get through this film (thanks to cinematographer Aaron Morton) are masterful and deserve to be applauded whether you enjoy horror or not.

The rest of the story follows Margaret Daino, an American woman who travels to Rome to take her vows and dedicate her life to God as a nun. Things turn dark when she discovers a little girl named Carlita, though Margaret feels a sense of protectiveness about her.

Dark secrets are revealed when Brennan and Margaret cross paths. The priest reveals to the postulant that “evil things” will happen around Carlita, and that the church plans to groom Carlita to be the mother of the antichrist, who will cast hellish chaos across Earth and thus bring more power to the church when people inevitably feel the need to reach for salvation through God.

Carlita leaves Brennan, distraught, but soon finds his outlandish accusations hold more weight than she suspected. After some brutal imagery of a woman giving birth to a devilish, clawed hand in the convent, and a fast-paced, disorienting nightclub scene the night before Margaret was supposed to take her vows, it is eventually revealed that the church had certainly been attempting to bring the antichrist to life – by mating young, unsuspecting women with a demonic beast in a catacomb beneath the convent.

We discover, along with Margaret, that Carlita is an offspring of this blasphemous ritual practice, and further, find that Margaret herself is a surviving child of the beast – born on the sixth day of the sixth month at six a.m.

The film ends with Margaret giving birth to the antichrist, with the child being sent off to the American Ambassador of Rome, Robert Thorn. And that brings us full circle to the original plot of the original film, as is the purpose of a sequel.

I adore the experimental imagery of this film. It takes extreme risks with some visuals, yet never loses its artistic swing on such horrific topics. One can rarely watch a horror flick and find it “beautiful,” and yet this film is exactly that.

It takes incredible amounts of skill to visually convey such terror in an artful way. I can only hope as an experimental filmmaker myself that one day I make something half as good as this film. There are several clever nods to another of my favorite horror films, “Possession” (1981, directed by Andrzej Żuławski), and a plot twist that is so obvious in hindsight, yet still had my jaw on the floor for a solid two minutes.

I give this film 5/5 stars and highly recommend it to any horror fans out there!

Advocate Staff