This 70s-set prelude to the classic satanic horror has flair but struggles with the weight and familiarity of what came before
We didn’t need a prequel to landmark 1976 horror The Omen but we’d have been foolish not to expect one. The major genre films of that era – Halloween, The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Alien, Suspiria – have all seen a new round of remakes, reboots and remixes in the last few years – some tolerable, most not – and so another Damien chapter is as inevitable as the rise of Damien himself.
It’s not the first time anyone has tried either. After the series sputtered out in 1991 with the cheapo gender-swapped TV movie Omen IV: The Awakening, the films went the way of most horror during that decade and it took until 2006, a time of anything-goes, mostly gutter-level remakes, for the sixes to align once again. It was a slickly made yet utterly soulless retread (released on 6 June of course) and it took another decade for the obvious small-screen demotion, with one-season dud Damien, following the problem child as he became a problem adult. Now we’re going way back to where it all began with The First Omen, announced back in 2016 with Christine’s Antonio Campos intriguingly attached, and now arriving without him but with the question that we ask ourselves every time Hollywood double dips: do we really need to be back here?
