THE FIRST OMEN – Review by Nadine Whitney
There are certain horror properties which have been stretched beyond their ability to entertain beyond a certain value of camp. As much as William Friedkin’s The Exorcist is one of the seminal pieces of 1970s horror, the continuation of it as a franchise has been uneven. So too the seemingly infinite sequels, reboots, and remakes of John Carpenter’s Halloween. Richard Donner and David Seltzer’s 1976 film The Omen inspired two cinema released sequels, a made for television movie and a 2014 remake.
After the disastrous The Exorcist: Believer, it is natural that some audiences would feel a certain trepidation towards Arkasha Stevenson’s 1971 set The Omen prequel. However, Stevenson’s gloriously gothic vision mixed with genuine body horror and dark critique of extended abuse in the Catholic Church is sophisticated and chilling.
Two characters return from the original film. Father Brennan (originally played by Patrick Troughton and here played by Ralph Ineson) and Father Spiletto. Otherwise, The First Omen written by Ben Jacoby is mostly an original beast which plays with the lore set out by Seltzer but does so in a manner more punishing and psychologically sadistic than any of the films since the original.
In a small cameo by Charles Dance, Father Harris brings a photograph of “Scianna” to Father Brenna. A female infant held by nuns. Harris refuses to elaborate on the photograph except to suggest it was not a “natural birth,” and something terrible is coming which he is ashamed he had a part in. Mere moments later Father Harris is dead in a scene which prefigures Brennan’s own death in the 1976 version.
A young novitiate, Margaret Daino (Nell Tiger Free) an orphan raised by the Church in America arrives in Rome greeted by her longstanding friend and mentor Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy). Margaret is demur and shy and ready to devote her life to God and care for his children. The abbey she is being taken to, Vizzardeli, run by Sister Silvia (Sonia Braga) doubles as an orphanage and a centre where the nuns deliver babies for unwed women.
Vizzardeli is imposing and filled with the crumbling splendour of a once wealthy church property. Margaret, filled with curiosity, surveys her surroundings. Her wide eyes taking in both the joyous aspect of the community and the increasingly unsettling.
Cardinal Lawrence tells Margaret that increased secularism and the new freedoms enjoyed by women are damaging the relevance of the Church. God is becoming meaningless. Yet with the devotion of those like Margaret, the Church may yet blossom again and take its rightful place in society.
The death of faith is something Margaret seems impossible because she was conditioned to believe. She is pious, but something is causing her anxiety. Is it the intense stares and mutterings of Anjelica (Ishtar Currie Wilson), or is it the chilling drawings of the child Carlita (Nicole Sorace) who is kept apart from the other orphans because of her ‘bad behaviour’ and kept in chains?
Margaret’s more modern and open roommate Luz Valez (Maria Caballero) suggests to that she at least must experience some liberty before she is forever wed to Christ and takes her out for a night of drunken excess in a nightclub where she meets name Paolo (Andrea Arcangeli). Back in the apartment Margaret feels something might have happened to her as she blacked out, but Luz insists she was returned safely to her bed.
The first three Omen films have something in common. They set up the tone of the film and then as the idea that the Antichrist is real, they switch into a form of detective movie. As Margaret’s world becomes increasingly fraught, she joins with Father Brennan and the young Father Gabriel (Tawfeek Barhom) to solve the mystery of the Sciannas.
Stevenson and cinematographer Aaron Morton understand the conventions of Gothic horror. Horror is built on uncertainty. Is what is happening real or imagined? Are the terrible things Margaret witnesses due to her own trauma and implied mental illness combined with the unrelated madness of others?
Just as Katherine Thorn was told she was suffering from a nervous disposition and not being targeted by her young son, Margaret is told she is not only imagining things, but they are so impure that she is no longer welcome to become a bride of Christ.
Margaret has every reason to be terrified. Flashbacks of a sexual assault which is positively medieval (and viscerally sickening) prove not to be Margaret’s mind splintering but something which happened to her. Fighting against the clock Margaret, Brennan, and Gabriel must escape the influence of place before the devil takes his daughter as the womb from which his male heir will emerge.
The First Omen is stylish and gloriously shot. Composer Mark Korzen knows when to bring in Jerry Goldsmith’s ‘Ave Santini’ motif. Margaret’s tendril like hair spread out on a pillow is one of the most remarkable shots in the film and complements another disquietingly brutal scene. Without going into details, the images of births and jackals are ferocious and abject.
The First Omen is a qualified success. Stevenson’s vision along with Nell Tiger Free’s performance create a wonderful Gothic. Queasy, uneasy, and grotesque; it works impeccably right up to the final ten minutes when it is made to explicitly connect to the 1976 film. Stevenson has made one of the better horror prequels, and one which shows she has a strong grip on genre cinema.
