Flasz On Film

There are many reasons to make a movie. From an innate desire to tell a story important to the filmmaker all the way to the most prosaic of reasons: the desire to make money and entertain audiences. Sometimes, inception of one movie could be powered by multiple reasons, some of which may crystallize during the long and arduous process of putting it together, which may or may not infuse the final product with an aptly resonant meaning.  

Now, I don’t know exactly why someone up in the upper echelons of The Division of Disney Formerly Known as Fox decided it was a good idea to greenlight a prequel to the 1976 The Omen. Perhaps the reason was as innocent as “it seemed a good idea at the time and we had a few interesting pitches and we could announce it on social media to coincide with the film’s fortieth anniversary.” No idea. It could be. Or maybe the rights were about to lapse and in order for the studio to keep them, they had to demonstrate these rights weren’t completely dormant. I realize this is something that may have happened at least once with The Terminator franchise, the rights to which have been ping-ponged between studios over the years. But, again, I can never be sure. After all, I’m just a geezer with a keyboard. God forbid I do research. Who has the time? 

That’s kind of how I see it. The primary reason why The First Omen exists made me feel of that episode of How I Met Your Mother where everyone spent five minutes listing all possible reasons to have sex. You can do it to have a baby. You can do it to have fun. You can do it for money or to pass the time. Or because if feels good. You can do it competitively for sport. Or because it seems like a good idea and there’s nothing better to do and there’s nothing interesting on TV. Or because condoms are about to expire and it would be otherwise a waste of money.  

In a way, The First Omen may have originated out of the “condoms are about to expire” type of desire to make a movie, but it nonetheless was given an immediate boost in May 2022 when Arkasha Stevenson signed on to direct in a transition from directing TV… which was immediately followed by the landmark repeal of Roe v Wade in America, effectively criminalizing abortion nationwide. Understandably, the filmmakers drew inspiration from this unmistakably paradigm-shifting event, which also explains why nearly two years on we are starting to see a delayed artistic response to this with the recently released Immaculate.  

In fact, it is inescapable that The First Omen will forever be tied to Immaculate the way The Prestige is tethered to The Illusionist and the way Armageddon is joined at the hip to Deep Impact. And time can only tell which of the two movies shall stand the test of time. But I can tell you this much already: one of these two films felt more decisively like a product of an artistic drive originating organically in a desire to tell a story, while the other – while still politically and culturally relevant and resonant with the plight of the female cause – felt as though it was conceived because the figurative copyright condoms were about the expire.  

I don’t necessarily want to engage in direct comparisons with Immaculate because at this point it would seem insincere, but even objectively speaking, The First Omen is a movie that wants to say a lot and feels as though it wanted to be remembered as a provocative piece of genre filmmaking reflecting the current political mores through the lens of graphic gore, searing imagery and occasional subtle visual references to such classics as Rosemary’s Baby, Possession and (naturally) the 1976 The Omen, but it just makes no sense at all. It’s a pile of stupid with dumb on top cobbled together with nothing more than good intentions and a complete lack of self-awareness on behalf of literally everyone involved in the production of this thing.  

Where do I even begin? Perhaps where the movie does. Which is where we the filmmakers want us to reignite some long-forgotten nostalgia to a movie which (while unmistakably good) did not necessitate a franchise at all and should have realistically been left alone right there and then. Is Father Brennan from The Omen an iconic character like Father Merrin from The Exorcist? I don’t think so, yet the filmmakers insist on our lizard brains recognizing this connection, as they cast Ralph Ineson in this role, presumably because he looks a little bit like Patrick Troughton, who played this role in the 1976 original. And by the way, the only reason why you should remember this character is because of the way he dies in the movie – impaled on a spike after a photographic premonition suggests it would happen. So, naturally, something similar happens in the opening few minutes of this film to Charles Dance’s character whose name isn’t remotely important… because he dies immediately. But that’s more or less the extent of how deep the connections to the original movie go here. Visual cues, musical nods to Jerry Goldsmith’s score. And the final reveal at the end of the movie, which makes the character of Damien – who becomes the anti-protagonist of the series that shouldn’t exist – seem like a Marvel superhero. Give me a break.  

But anyhow, we are in Rome in the early 70s, together with a young American nun-to-be, Margaret (Neil Tiger Free), who has moved to an Italian convent-stroke-orphanage because… I don’t know. Reasons. Naturally, there is a conspiracy underpinning her arrival to Rome, about which we find out a bit later, but it still makes very little sense and the movie is irritating enough that it precludes any suspension of disbelief, so you just sit there shaking your head and thinking how terminally braindead whatever this movie is trying to do actually is. But we push on. Margaret arrives at an Italian convent where everyone speaks English and it’s the 70s in Rome so naturally everyone speaks fluent English with a spicy accent. And we also find another nun exchange student there – Luz (Maria Caballero) with whom Margaret shares her room. Everything is overseen by an evil nurse Ratched-type Sister Silvia (Sonia Braga), who seems just as bent on keeping secrets about the orphanage filled with young Italian girls who also speak fluent English as she is on keeping troublesome orphans in solitary confinement, where they are free to draw Bosch-esque hellscapes under the carpet. 

What did I just say? It makes no sense at all.  

We have a nun who sets herself on fire and – in a bout of visual homage to the governess from the original – hangs herself violently at some point in the movie. We have a cardinal who’s too nice for his own good (Bill Nighy), a conspiracy, a bunch of nightmares and it has all something to do with the convent trying to breed The Antichrist and failing miserably. Which is more or less what happens in Immaculate as well. I know, I promised not to make direct comparisons, but I somehow feel compelled to do so on this one occasion because in a handful of respects these two movies share a stirring degree of overlap and yet The First Omen just does not work one bit. It’s unnecessary, boring and logically infuriating, while the other movie feels organically embedded in the central character’s headspace, which invariably helps with any suspension of disbelief and the requisite internalization of the horror she goes through.  

Maybe this is it. The First Omen is just too performative to be taken seriously, which – in a domino effect – successfully undermines literally everything the story relies on. And it relies on the audiences swallowing a good heap of garbage storytelling, that’s for blooming sure.  

It just goes to show that some movies ought to be left alone. Maybe sometimes a condom should be allowed to expire because nobody – I repeat: NOBODY! – needed another entry in a franchise that should have never been a franchise in the first place. Just like The Exorcist: Believer, The First Omen should have simply not happened at all and the world would have been better off. Think of all the fossil fuel burned to make this movie. Think of all the effort on behalf of Neil Tiger Free, who at one point tries to homage Possession and just about whips herself into a frenzy unnerving enough to get the viewer to feel something before the story reminds us that it’s all for naught. Because the movie makes no sense and it is artificially tethered to a Rogue One-esque ending tying directly into the scene where Gregory Peck is told his baby died and that he instead is going to get a different one, not knowing it was born of a jackal. No, wait. It wasn’t. It was born of a woman but conceived by a jackal-esque monster. But it doesn’t matter. The franchise has been now retconned and Gregory Peck isn’t available for comment.  

What a joke.  

Long story short, The First Omen is a movie that shouldn’t truly exist, especially since we live in a world where Immaculate – a twin movie which is superior on all counts – also happens to exist. It’s a waste of time, money and talent and it is a real shame because Stevenson’s script is thematically relevant and occasionally happens to tap into some visceral and unnerving emotional dissonances. But it just makes no sense at all. And in its attempt to say stuff that is profound, it also wants to tie itself to some misplaced nostalgia that literally nobody has for The Omen, which results in a movie which is just irritating and hence almost impossible to sit through.  

Oof.