"You don't have to be afraid. God has great plans for you. This child is his way."
— Lawrence
The First Omen is a 2024 American Religious Horror film and a prequel to the 1976 classic, The Omen. It is directed by Arkasha Stevenson and stars Nell Tiger Free, Tawfeek Barhom, Sônia Braga, Ralph Ineson, Bill Nighy and Charles Dance.
The story follows Margaret (Free), an American woman who's come to Rome to begin a new life with the Church who is embroiled in a dark conspiracy involving unholy forces.
The film premiered on April 5, 2024.
Previews: Trailer 1
, Trailer 2
The First Omen contains examples of the following:
- Adaptational Heroism: In the original film, Father Brennan was a former member of the conspiracy to create the Antichrist before deciding to redeem himself and atone after developing terminal cancer. Here, Brennan is fighting against the conspiracy from the beginning.
- Ambiguous Situation: The demonic jackal's identity is left unrevealed, though it's implied to be Satan himself}} - at least by context.
- Animalistic Abomination: Satan himself appears in the form of a humanoid jackal.
- Anti Anti Christ: Double subverted. Aside from Margaret ultimately being chosen as the vessel to bring forth the Antichrist against her wishes, Carlita, despite being raised as another candidate, pulls a Heel–Face Turn to save Margaret and the daughter she also gave birth to, who was passed up for Damien, and may not be bound to the prophecy.
- Artistic License – Medicine: Demonic gestation aside, Margaret is walking under her power minutes after a C-section.
- Asshole Victim: Paolo, however reluctantly, allows Margaret to be drugged and raped by Satan at the cult's behest. He's later killed by supernatural forces - implied to be Damien himself - to prevent him from telling Margaret the truth.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: Margaret, and her mother before her, end up having sex with a jackal-shaped demon.
- Also if we go by the original film, possible Homosexual Reproduction.
- Big Bad: Cardinal Lawrence is the mastermind behind the scheme.
- Bittersweet Ending: Margaret and Carlita escape the church fire with Margaret's daughter and are able to raise her in peace far from the church's conspirators. However, this being a prequel, Damien is still born and will fulfill his destiny as The Antichrist.
- Bloodier and Gorier: While the first film was fairly explicit (for its time), this is film is much more graphic and explicit with its gore and body horror - namely: a woman giving birth complete with close-up, Paolo being Half the Man He Used to Be, Father Harris getting a chunk of his head sliced off, and Anjelica's suicide by hanging and immolation.
- Call-Forward: Nearly all of the death scenes in the film. To wit;
- Father Harris is killed by a metal pole falling from a church roof, much like Brennan in The Omen (1976). However, instead of being impaled, the metal knocks a considerable portion of the back of his head off.
- Anjelica stands on the edge of a balcony saying, "It's all for you" in reference to the conspiracy, in a reference to Damian's nanny doing this as the first onscreen death in The Omen (1976). In a mild case of Not His Sled, she sets herself on fire before then hanging herself, as in the original.
- Paolo, like Jennings in The Omen (1976) and Doctor Kane in Damien: Omen II, is killed after providing a vital clue to the protagonist. Like those who follow him chronologically, he's respectively hit by a car, and then gruesomely bisected, although here, Paolo dies when Margaret provides Worst Aid.
- Cardinal Lawrence is stabbed in the neck similar to Mrs. Baylock's demise at the hands of Robert. Bonus points for being the last onscreen death in the movie unless one counts the Jackal.
- Continuity Cameo: The Thorn couple appear in archive footage and in photographs during the climax.
- Corrupt Church: The abbey has been intentionally allowing the creation of demonic offspring, all with the intention of eventually having a male child as the Antichrist. Subverted with Father Gabriel, who reveals that he's working with Brennan instead.
- Dead Star Walking: Charles Dance appears for only the opening scene as Father Harris, who supplies Brennan with the photo of Damien's mother when she was born and tells of her own demonic conception before being killed by a metal pipe slicing apart a large chunk of the back of his head.
- Enfant Terrible: Father Brennan claims Damien is targeting anyone who can thwart his birth even as a fetus. It's unclear if this is true or not, since the cult and Satan are responsible for most of the supernatural phenomena, but something caused the car accident that killed Paolo.
- Express Delivery: Shortly after the reveal that she is pregnant, Margaret goes from flat stomach to birth within hours at a maximum. The child has to be born on June 6th at six in the morning, so it skips the rest of the gestation time.
- Evil All Along: While Sister Sylvia is quite sinister from the get-go, Cardinal Lawrence and Luz are in on the conspiracy too.
- Faux Affably Evil:
- Cardinal Lawrence is polite and nurturing even once it's revealed he's spent his entire life grooming Margaret to be raped.
- Luz is spunky and jocular, but shows no hesitation about trying to kill Margaret at the end.
- Foregone Conclusion: No matter what happens, we know that Father Brennan will survive and that Damien will be born. Played with, as despite the first film saying that Damien's birth mother died in childbirth, Margaret survives the film.
- The Fundamentalist: Father Brennan reveals to Margaret that the conspiracy to create the Anti-Christ is not the work of Satanists, but rather a small yet powerful group of fanatics within the church. Having grown dissatisfied with how young people are turning away from the church, they've decided to use the Anti-Christ to cause enough tragedy to drive people back to the Catholic Church by force. The entire abbey turns out to be in league.
- The Good Shepherd: Father Brennan is a legitimately good man, as is his ally Father Gabriel.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Satan himself, as per usual. He's not the mastermind behind the conspiracy, but is quite happy to participate and has raped numerous women - including his daughter Margaret - for Cardinal Lawrence's plans.
- Improbable Infant Survival: Damian and Margaret's daughter survive the film.
- Jerkass: Sister Sylvia acts polite, but is pretty unpleasant from the beginning and is quite abusive to Carlita.
- Karmic Death: Cardinal Lawrence is killed when his primary victim Margaret stabs him in the throat with a scalpel.
- Logo Joke: In the trailer, the searchlights surrounding the 20th Century Studios logo shut off one by one.
- My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels:
- Margaret says what she thinks is "I'm a teacher, and I love teaching" in Italian. Turns out her students actually taught her to say, "I'm a butterfly, and I must fly."
- Inverted by Italian Paolo, who invites Margaret (in English) to "eat" his drink.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Father Brennan notes the conspirators aren't motivated by genuine religion, but because they want to gain power and religion is a convenient way to do it. Luz, Sister Sylvia, and Cardinal Lawrence certainly believe they're working in God's interest, but both Brennan's words and their actions make it very clear they're motivated entirely selfishly.
- Offing the Offspring: Subverted. Margaret threatens to kill a newborn Damien with a scalpel, but hesitates after looking at him crying(in what is likely a Call-Forward to Robert being unable to kill Damien, himself).
- Ominous Latin Chanting: The franchise's iconic theme, "Ave Satani", starts playing as the cult celebrates Damien's birth.
- One-Eyed Shot: The last shot before the logo is an extreme close up on someone’s eye.
- Orifice Evacuation: Margaret bears witness to a demonic hand emerging from a woman's vagina, later in the movie revealed to be that of Satan himself.
- Parental Incest: Since Margaret was the result of a previous attempt to produce the Anti-Christ, the jackal-shaped demon that has sex with her is also her biological father.
- Repurposed Pop Song: The trailer is set to “If I Had a Heart” by Fever Ray.
- Precision F-Strike: The (up until then) squeaky clean nun Margaret tells Father Brennan, "Touch me again and I will fucking kill you!"
- Retcon:
- The first movie unequivocally establishes Damian's biological mother as a common jackal, yet this prequel's plot twist is that his mother was a human and a jackal-looking demon was the (biological) father.
- Additionally, it introduces a twin sister character, a concept completely absent from the first film.
- Crossing over with Spared by the Adaptation: the first movie says Damian's mother died in childbirth, but Margaret survives.
- Also, the original film doesn't really hide the fact that Damian's father is the Devil, in this film it could either be the Devil or just another demon, as the Devil or Satan is never mentioned by name during the film.
- Rewatch Bonus: Regarding Margaret and Luz's night at the club: at first it seems Margaret came on too strongly to Paolo, and Luz saved her from embarrassment, and that Luz's offer for it to be "our little secret" was a moment of genuine kindness. After it's been revealed that Luz and Paolo are part of the conspiracy for Margaret to be raped and impregnated by the devil, it's clear Luz was using Margaret's guilt to keep Margaret from asking questions about what happened while she was blacked out.
- Slasher Smile: The jackal demon sports a very creepy smile as it rapes Margaret.
- Sdrawkcab Speech: The last sound heard in the trailer is a reversed recording of the “It’s all for you, Damien” line from the original film.
- Tomato in the Mirror: During their investigation, Brennan, Gabriel and Margaret discover that while Carlita was a result of the Church's experiments, she isn't the one they intend to have birth the anti-christ. Margaret is.
- Un-Reboot: This installment does not follow the continuity of the 2006 remake, given Father Brennan (played by Ralph Ineson) here appears to be based on Patrick Troughton's depiction from the original film.
