
I wouldn’t say that I was looking forward to yet another entry in the dormant Omen film series. However, after watching “The First Omen,” I was delighted to be wrong. I really felt it only lifted the bar fairly high. For someone who is directing a feature film for the first time, she had solid instincts and control. I was also unable to believe the extent to which Nell Tiger Free would be able to take over the role.
“The First Omen” is the sixth in the franchise, and goes back in time before the events of the 1976 film featuring Gregory Peck. In many aspects, it is comparable to other horror movies that have religious themes: an abundance of church imagery, certain cliches of the narrative, and a standard progression of events from beginning to end. Nonetheless, “The First Omen” is delightfully clever and builds up a great deal of suspense and all kinds of dramatic reveals. What is more interesting is that subtly embedded within the film’s traditional horror setting is a very compelling supernatural enigma that raises many questions.
During the history of Antique, a recently arrived Sarju Paktong in Rome is played by the emerging star Nell Tiger Free. Florence Munny, her caregiving husband entered an orphanage run by Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy) during childhood. He assigns Margaret to Vizzardeli Orphanage, where she makes an immediate friend in a child, Carlita Scianna (Nicole Sorace), who has behavior problems.
As Margaret grows closer to Carlita, the other nuns start to worry, but it is mostly Sister Silvia (Sonia Braga) who appears to be annoyed with the constant closeness of Margaret and Carlita. There is a good chance that these superiors will be frustrated with Sister Silvia’s efforts to reach Carlita, whom she perceives as a problem child. They tie her down, using restraints and isolation, and place her in a room simply called \”the bad room\”. The treatment further outrages Margaret who has already defied Sister Silvia on a number of occasions.
But the orphanage is not going to be the only location Margaret would reside in as her more fun roommate Sister Luz convinces her to sneak out with her to a nightclub for a night of fun. It is one of many such formative experiences that makes the fervent yet ambivalent Margaret disillusioned with certain aspects of the church that she has revered for most of her life. And that growing inner turmoil, in several regards, pathetically becomes the reason for a great deal of her choices later on as well.
Such is the time of the story that you are wondering about supernatural horror. After all, this is an Omen movie, right? To Stevenson’s credit, she does not rush through the biography and delivers the backstory in an interspersed manner. She methodically constructs her elements and their functions in the narrative, building intensity gradually before reaching a frenzied turn. But, however, even in the opening parts, Stevenson creates and sustains a bone-chilling atmosphere of dread that only gets worse as the story unfolds, culminating in an astonishingly horrific final segment that’s not for the faint of heart.
The most important twist of the rising action takes place when Margaret gets contacted by the excommunicated Father Brennan (portrayed in the 1976 film by Patrick Troughton and here by Ralph Ineson). After all, attempts to reveal the dark forces working in the church, he gets excommunicated; he warns Margaret to “beware of Carlita” and that “evil things” are bound to happen around the girl. A reluctant Margaret dismisses his conspiracy theory. Until astonishingly horrific things do happen which, in turn, lead to some of the dark and shocking evidence that indeed may vindicate Father Brennan.
In the last third of the film, Stevenson shifts gears, and as a result, a torrent of horrors is revealed. The dark turns work well largely because of the effort invested in making one care about the character of Margaret and thus increasing the stakes (quite unlike the rather unambitious and decidedly weaker “Immaculate” of just a month ago). It all builds up into something monstrous, gruesome, and gloriously insane.
When films catch me unaware, I get so excited, and “The First Omen” was able to achieve that. This does not feel like a grasping attempt to shake the last dollar out of a well-worn franchise. This is an intelligent, inventive, and beautifully crafted horror movie that does not use cheap thrills or clichés to give the audience the satisfaction that they’re looking for. Featuring unsurpassed direction and storytelling coupled with an unrivaled lead performance by Nell Tiger Free. Everything works together to create a film that is not constrained by franchise limitations but nonetheless complements and eventually resolves with the original released in 1976 in several innovative ways. “The First Omen” has now been released in the cinemas.
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