‘The First Omen’ plays to the faithful, but more nun fun is to be had elsewhere

Joshua Rothkopf April 5, 2024

The First Omen is neither, as it happens, the first Omen (1976s half-loved horror hit) nor the first Omen reboot (a misbegotten 2006 attempt). Its not even this springs first movie about nuns in trouble and baby bumps in the night; that would be Marchs Immaculate starring an unbound Sydney Sweeney, a film that compares favorably to this one for being crazier, gorier and ultimately more defiant.

But The First Omen does have a certain swagger, like it was the only evil-pregnancy thriller in the world. Lets credit debuting feature director Arkasha Stevenson (a former photographer for this paper) with the stylishness to pull off a potent sense of atmosphere and the kind of lovely period detail that deep studio pockets can fund but rarely have cause to summon. The movie is set in the seething, hippified Rome of 1971, a shaggy backdrop straight out of Federico Fellinis

Roma

or, more aptly, Dario Argentos post-Manson masterworks

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

and

Four Flies on Grey Velvet

.

Traipsing into these lushly hued shadows is Margaret (Nell Tiger Free of Game of Thrones), a wide-eyed novitiate who is quickly supplied with the type of companions that naive Americans typically get in these movies. Theres a kindly-but-clearly-malevolent mentor, Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy), a louche, sexually experienced roommate unlikely to be taking vows anytime soon named Luz (Maria Caballero) and a spooky overseer, Sister Silvia (Snia Braga).

Margaret, it is hoped, will be able to connect to the wayward generation currently protesting in the streets. (A rejection of authority, sighs Nighys cleric as scripted by Stevenson, Tim Smith and Keith Thomas, this is a film that often says the quiet part out loud.) But mainly were waiting for the creaking, clanking scaffolding mishaps of Omen movies of yore: the rooftop suicide leaps and mark-of-the-beast reveals. Those moments do arrive, confidently, in ways that fans will tick off approvingly without ever being wholly traumatized by.

There is a genius at work here, though: the makeup and prosthetics designer Adrien Morot, elsewhere the creator of the vicious robot girl in M3GAN and an Oscar winner for The Whale. Morot has a gooey ball with these full-to-bursting wombs; one nightmarish image, surely pushing the R-rating to the limit, shows an unlikely clawed digit emerging from where delivery doctors would anticipate a crowned head. (I cant wait to watch this on a plane.)

How long will it be before Margaret, teetering around in heels at a disco, suffers a mysterious pregnancy that somehow manifests in weeks, not months? Dont question The First Omen too hard. Its dark magic, such that it works, functions in sensory impressions: the gravelly basso of The Witch star Ralph Inesons voice (a special effect in itself) or the choral doom of Jerry Goldsmiths original score from 1976, revived to fine effect.

The problem, of course, is that you know where this is going. You even know, somehow, that the final word uttered in the film will be a boys name, famous to even non-horror fans. A prequel to one of the most conservative movies of the 1970s, The First Omen is destined to disappoint anyone hoping for something a little more imaginative. It brings us straight to Gregory Pecks ambassador, detailing a backstory we never needed in the first place. But it mainly speaks in a language of suspense, not jump scares, and if you ever wanted to spoil an omen with an omen beforehand, it should get you converted for a couple of hours.