‘The First Omen’ REVIEW: Unveiling the unanswered, leaving room for more
‘The First Omen’ REVIEW: Unveiling the unanswered, leaving room for more
Sônia Braga (left) and Nell Tiger Free (right) in The First Omen.
This review only references The Omen (1976) and not the 2006 remake. This review contains spoilers of said film and The First Omen (2024).
Uncovering the identity of the antichrist that manifested in the form of a 5-year-old named Damien (Harvey Stephens) has been the core focus of The Omen (1976), but to understand a child is to know its parents. Curiosity on who birthed Damien has been bugging both the audience and the characters alike, with Damien’s foster father, Robert Theon (Gregory Peck)—with the help of a photographer named Keith Jennings (David Warner)—even going as far as to open the grave of the supposed real mother of the antichrist, Maria Scianna.
What they both found is a skeleton of a jackal, a wild dog, and assuming that Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton) was correct, this animal should be Damien’s true father. Two things can be derived from this scene: the first is that Maria did not exist and was only created to allude that his birth mother died during childbirth.
In short, her character was meant to perturb investigations by providing a maternal figure, and as long as no one else lifts the gravestone, the truth will never come out. This scenario played out at the end of the original film, with all knowledge of Damien’s true identity buried together with Robert and Keith as they succumbed to their deaths..
However, the second thing that can be derived from the same revelation is just as likely, with the mismatched skeleton proving that the woman who birthed Damien is still alive out there.
The First Omen (2024) details the life of Margaret Daino (Nell Tiger Free) and how she slowly uncovered the horrors hiding underneath the Catholic Church. Margaret traverses 1970s Rome, amidst the rise of secularism, and meets a fellow orphan named Carlita (Nicole Sorace), and with the help of each other, they investigate the truth about their past.
Similar to the original, the focus of the film is to determine the origins of a toddler, which is first introduced during the opening scene. It starts with a confessional between two priests, Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson) and Father Harris (Charles Dance), talking about the only tangible evidence of the church’s atrocities. It then showed a quick shot of a woman veiled in black clothing heavily breathing as Harris expounds on the meaning behind the photo.
The film acknowledges a character from the original film and Maria Scianna, as her last name was inscribed in a seemingly innocent photo of a child together with some members of the church. And just like the 1976 film, this prequel does not hesitate to immediately show some body horror not even 15 minutes after it started, as an accident occurs immediately after the photo was explained.
Ralph Ineson in The First Omen.
Its first horror scene begins as everything slows down and pieces of stained glass fallfell from the sky. Harris mentions to Brennan that he’ll soon understand, then slowly looks straight into the camera, until the latter shifts his gaze upward to see a pipe breaking the stained glass into pieces, signifying the beginning of his rude awakening to the horrors of the church he belonged to. What seemed to be a safe “accident” between two priests narrowly avoiding the debris was immediately flipped as Harris turned, revealing the back of his head split open from the falling pipe.
Seeing it for the first time can be extremely disturbing, especially as Harris creepily smiled and the title card was revealed. It didn’t help that the music playing in the background, Ennio Morricone’s Sospesi nel cielo, gives a heavenly yet sinister undertones lurking behind its melody. The same music was first used in Paolo Cavara’s I malamondo (1964), a documentary of strange practices in Europe.
Nell Tiger Free (left) and Nicole Sorace (right) in The First Omen.
The First Omen answered critical questions that arose from the original film, most especially about the identity of Damien’s parents. It is true that Maria Scianna is the mother of Damien, but it is also true that the jackal skeleton is also Scianna, more specifically a failed creation of the church when trying to recreate the antichrist. A red herring was introduced in the form of Carlita’s character, misdirecting the audience into believing that she is the child that Brennan and the others are looking for.
The fact that there are two successful experiments from the devil crossbreeding experiment is a bombshell that most wouldn’t think of until it was revealed before the film’s climax. It is equally shocking to know that Damien was only successfully created by inbreeding the devil with its own daughter, which references the idea of purity in royal intermarriages — the concept that the Catholic church vehemently opposed during its early days. The film also answers why Damien was adopted by a US diplomat, as he neededs to have authority and political influence to create chaos and bring Catholic theocracy back into the mainstream.
Nell Tiger Free in The First Omen.
Body horror is the film’s main way of petrifying its audience to the core, and besides its opening, The First Omen does not censor the gruesomeness when it comes to the birth of the antichrist. While it was hinted in the trailer, the hanging scene was also brought back and recreated by a nun named Anjelica (Ishtar Currie Wilson), with an added bonus of self-immolation to further separate its brutality from the 1976 film.
And while the musical score heightens the sense of dread to an already horrifying shot, the most terrifying scenes of this film are those with little to no accompanying sound, highlighting the pain and suffering of those who unfortunately have to bear the child of the devil. Margaret and the unnamed woman she saw both endured excruciating pain as they went into labor, feeling as if a devil was taking over their bodies. It is understandable if some are discouraged from having a baby just by witnessing these scenes alone.
An altar burns in The First Omen.
And of course, the ending. It was revealed that Margaret birthed a twin, but the church only wanted the male so they discarded the women (the female baby, Margaret, and Clarita) by letting them die from the fire. Brennan comes to find them living in isolation and warning them of the church conspirators hunting them.
The film concludes by connecting its ending to the opening of the 1976 movie, as baby Damien is delivered into Robert's care. And it seems like these ending scenes hint at sequels and remakes to come in the near future.
The First Omen is a noteworthy prequel as it ties every critical detail to an already well-known horror classic, leaving us craving for more hopefully good Omen sequels to come.
The First Omen is now showing in Philippine cinemas nationwide.
