Nerdly » ‘The First Omen’ Review

05th Apr2024

‘The First Omen’ Review

by Matthew Turner

Stars: Nell Tiger Free, Ralph Ineson, Sônia Braga, Tawfeek Barhom, Maria Caballero, Charles Dance, Billy Nighy, Nicole Sorace | Written by Tim Smith, Arkasha Stevenson, Keith Thomas | Directed by Arkasha Stevenson

Typical. You wait years for a movie about a teenage American nun who becomes mysteriously pregnant when she travels to an Italian nunnery and then two come along at once. Consequently, The First Omen – a prequel to the 1976 horror classic – has had its thunder stolen somewhat by Michael Mohan’s excellent Sydney Sweeney-starring nunsploitation picture Immaculate (which is still in cinemas), but still delivers its fair share of tense atmospherics, jump scares and impressive body horror.

The film begins in 1971, with virginal young American novice Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) travelling to Rome, where she’s met by kindly Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy), before beginning her apprenticeship at the Vizzardeli Orphanage, where she will eventually take her vows. Soon, Margaret’s attention is drawn by Carlita (Nicole Sorace), a young girl who is often separate from the others, and who keeps drawing disturbing images of nuns doing terrible things.

When a nun dies in mysterious circumstances (in one of several callbacks to the original film), Margaret begins to suspect that there might be something shady going on in the orpanage, and her suspicions are confirmed further when Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson) warns her of an unholy conspiracy to birth the Anti-Christ, so as to force people to turn back to God. Believing Carlita to be in danger, Margaret sets out to protect her, but swiftly realises the conspiracy may go deeper than she thought.

Nell Tiger Free (Game of Thrones) makes a terrific lead as Margaret, embuing her with both wide-eyed naivity and inner depths of strength and courage. Similarly, Bill Nighy is well cast as Cardinal Lawrence, while Maria Caballero makes a strong impression as Luz, Margaret’s sexy roommate at the orphanage, who encourages her to go out with her and enjoy their last days of freedom by meeting boys and dancing in local bars. On top of that, there’s strong support from Ralph Ineson as Father Brennan (a key character in the original film), though Charles Dance is sadly under-used as Father Harris, a character whose only role seems to be to facilitate a visual callback to another one of the 1976 movie’s most famous scenes.

The film is directed by Arkasha Stevenson, who does a great job of establishing a creepy atmosphere, aided by some superlative production design work and Aaron Morton’s striking cinematography. Stevenson also knows her way around a decent jump scare, pulling off a couple of decent ones, even if the script does tend to overly rely on hallucination sequences for cheap thrills.

However, Stevenson proves particularly adept at body horror moments, with one birth-related sequence in particular that is certain to become the film’s talking point, much as the final scene of Immaculate has done for the film’s spiritual sister. Here, the moment in question is a great bit of effects work, which Stevenson judges perfectly, using it sparingly, but achieving the maximum effect, nonetheless.

Ultimately, The First Omen‘s biggest problem is that it’s hindered by the fact that audiences already know where it’s going to end up, which takes a little of the tension out of certain aspects of the film. That said, the film finds a clever way of leaving the door open to continue the franchise, without necessarily committing to remaking all the other Omen movies. At any rate, it will be interesting to see where Stevenson goes from here, as this is her first feature (following some stylish, high-profile TV work, like Legion and Brand New Cherry Flavour) and she’s clearly a horror talent to watch.