The First Omen (2024)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Rarely have I been so gobsmacked. If you had told me that in spring 2024 -- less than a month apart -- we'd get two supernatural Catholic horror films, I'd have added it to my bingo card. If you had told me they'd both be essentially the same story but designed and presented in radically different ways, I'd have laughed at you. If you had told me one of them would be a prequel to the 1976 classic The Omen, I'd have called you crazy and called for backup. That film, somewhat overshadowed in cultural memory by The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby, launched three sequels best left ignored and one 2006 remake that I actually quite like (there's nothing wrong with a simple, straightforward remake done with updated filmmaking techniques and a new cast). There was also a fabulous 2016 sequel series on A&E entitled Damien that sadly lasted only one season before cancellation. But a standalone film prequel so long after all those efforts to revitalize the franchise? And one that, perhaps most shockingly, is intensely faithful to the original and its aesthetic while also setting itself up as a formidable and accomplished production on its own merit? Again, I am still gobsmacked.

For those interested in its contemporaries, we'll talk a bit about Immaculate right away. The ground each film covers is roughly the same: a young, new nun joins an Italian convent only to witness abuse and supernatural scares before discovering a conspiracy to create an Antichrist centered on her. But, even apart from the wider context of meaning associated with The First Omen, the former seems interested in paying homage to giallo and nunsploitation while the latter -- still trafficking in the same material -- feels visually and aurally rooted in the '70s. The differing aesthetics manifest differently, of course, and while both films are disturbing and frightening, Immaculate relies a bit harder on conventional jump scares to unnerve and delight its audience. The First Omen, conversely, attempts to earn its scares in a more original way, pushing a darker agenda and seeking the kind of brazen novelty that makes the scares in the original film so memorable. My point of divergence between the two films comes at the climax and finale of each: The First Omen, by nature of what it is, has to blend into the opening of the 1976 film (which it does!), whereas Immaculate is free to bring its insane story to its full potential, culminating in one of the most shocking and empowering and liberating endings of an original horror movie I've seen in a long time.

Taken on its own, The First Omen gets a lot right, even with its somewhat prescribed plot (the typical danger of prequels). Director Arkasha Stevenson's feature debut is a love letter to the original film, honoring it through references and homages to the likes of Gregory Peck, of course, but also through its unnerving tone and emotional vibes. Its strong visual stylizations (featuring appropriately grandiose cinematography by Aaron Morton -- No One Will Save You and 2013's Evil Dead -- and some really slick editing) feature dizzying aerial views of Rome accompanied by wailing operatic music (the music by Mark Korven of The Witch and The Lighthouse is notably strong here, which is crucial considering the original film's landmark soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith). There's a purposeful, melancholic, almost lamenting energy to this film, helped by the moaning music and somewhat '70s-tinged camera with earthy colors, emphasizing the serious tone of this story in ways that we don't see a lot anymore; consider the funhouse, Gothic, even camp atmosphere of recent religious horrors like The Pope's Exorcist and The Nun. This is most decidedly not that.

Important to this distinction is this film's focus on earned drama with deadly stakes more than on scares. Its uniformly great cast, led by an astonishing Nell Tiger Free (of M. Night Shyamalan's series Servant) as the novitiate Margaret and featuring Bill Nighy and Ralph Ineson, leans into the physicality of this film, carving out fascinating and always slightly original reactions to the otherwise predictable ooga-booga. The abbess (Sonia Braga) is less bitchy and more coldly matter-of-fact than we might expect, there is a priest who seems pretty gay (Father Gay-briel, if you please) and a cardinal whose kindly demeanor offers no hint of malice, and even the nuns in general are much less strict than we typically see. She befriends a mentally ill orphan only a bit younger than herself named Carlita (newcomer Nicole Sorace in a powerhouse performance) who is far more important than we might at first suppose.

There is a lot here to talk about for fans of the original, and this is the kind of prequel that makes you immediately want to go home and pop in the original to continue the story. Doing so would only heighten both films, as this feels like an aesthetic companion piece that also deepens our understanding of the plot of the original while emphasizing certain thematic conceits that were present in the original if not fully explored. Moreover, like Immaculate, this film seems eager to pounce on contemporary American anxieties about women's bodily autonomy -- especially in a religious context -- in the wake of Roe v. Wade's overrule. Underlining the hypocrisy of religion, especially Catholic traditions, doesn't end there, bleeding as it does into the plot itself: the conspiracy at work in this convent is unique in its aims and shockingly believable in today's political games. An institution perverting its own purpose to gain adherents and clout? Through fear? Yeah, this one hits a little close to home. Not bad for a late-in-coming prequel set in the '70s with a whole lot more on its mind.