Directed by Arkasha Stevenson
Written by Tim Smith, Arkasha Stevenson and Keith Thomas
Starring:
- Nell Tiger Free as Margaret Daino
- Ralph Ineson as Father Brennan
- Sônia Braga as Sister Silva
- Tawfeek Barhom as Father Gabriel
- Bill Nighy as Cardinal Lawrence
- Maria Caballero as Luz
- Charles Dance as Father Harris
Rating: 
Arkasha Stevenson’s The First Omen kicks up a storm of wild, half-formed thoughts—part sequel, part prequel, maybe both at once. At first, I thought I was watching a killer stand-alone horror flick about a young American novitiate’s raw, bodily awakening inside a creepy Roman orphanage. Nell Tiger Free nails the role of Margaret, playing her with compassion, innocence, and guilt that cut straight through the screen. For a while, it looked like this was going to be the rare prequel that didn’t play like a prequel. Too bad—it turns out it is one, and man, it’s the prequeliest prequel I’ve ever seen.
The first act of The First Omen almost tricks you into thinking you’re getting something bold: a nun’s twisted coming-of-age story in Rome during the Years of Lead, with the focus locked on Margaret instead of franchise baggage. That’s where Stevenson shines—digging into self-discovery. But then it all falls apart. Once we hit that pathetic CGI nun-immolation, the movie jumps headfirst into generic prequel mode—and a bad one at that. Honestly, I’d rather have a whole film of Nell Tiger Free’s Margaret writhing in smoky barlight, discovering sex and struggling with her Catholic guilt, than another reheated Omen installment. Sure, I get it, it’s officially a prequel, no way around it. But here’s the real question: does it even work as one?
So let’s be real: The First Omen is basically a Rosemary’s Baby knock-off, though Immaculate—which dropped the same year—pulled it off way better. And it doesn’t stop there; it also tries to ride the coattails of The Exorcist, but instead of Friedkin’s razor-sharp clash between church and secular reason, we get a limp photocopy. Any sparks of originality from that wild, artsy first act are crushed once the movie shows its true colors as pure imitation. For a while, it’s just a slow but good-looking horror flick. But the second it can’t stop shoving Donner’s Omen down our throats—every damn scene staged like a desperate reference—the whole thing turns into a parody of itself. If Stevenson and her team are so obsessed with Donner’s film, why didn’t they actually bother to learn its mythology? That’s the real sin here.
A lot of people are hyping up The First Omen as some kind of bold “re-mythologizing” of the franchise. I call bullshit—it’s just lazy writing dressed up as ambition. Damien is supposed to be the Antichrist, born of a jackal, not Margaret. And don’t even try to sell me on the idea that the carcass Peck and Warner dig up in Donner’s creepy-ass cemetery scene is the same thing we get here. In the new film it’s not a jackal—it’s literally the devil. Which means this prequel doesn’t just bend canon, it breaks it in the dumbest way possible. It’s like Lucas suddenly deciding in the Star Wars prequels that Vader wasn’t Luke’s dad after all. That’s not re-mythologizing, that’s idiotic revisionism. And what burns me most is that the film wants me to erase one of my favorite moments in Donner’s Omen just because these filmmakers couldn’t figure out how to connect the dots.
Think about what The First Omen had on the table: the Years of Lead, end-of-days paranoia, women breaking free, secular doubt, satanism, sex, and morality in meltdown. That’s a goldmine. But what does the movie do? Blows it all on lame jump scares, a random Gregory Peck snapshot, tacky CGI firestorms, Easter egg overload, a bargain-bin “Ave Satani,” and one of the cheesiest endings I’ve seen in a studio horror film in years.
