The First Omen movie review & film summary (2024)
However at the start, “The First Omen” is proudly an “Omen” film with all its symbolism, ‘70s vibes and earthy colour palette and insidious scares intact; ones that may linger and multiply when you flip your lights off nightly. So if the thought of a legacy-prequel to a basic made you roll your eyes at first, assume once more. Not solely does Stevenson, alongside her co-writers Keith Thomas and Tim Smith, remind us what made the road “It’s all for you, Damien!” so chillingly iconic again in 1976, in addition they immediately justify the necessity for an origin story for Damien, the Antichrist parented by an American diplomat and his spouse, performed by Gregory Peck and Lee Remick. (The brand new movie’s homage to Peck is each great and a cue you can run straight again residence and press play on Donner’s movie for an expertise as seamless as watching the primary two “Halloween” films back-to-back.)
The story is of Margaret Daino (a terrific Nell Tiger Free), a fresh-off-the-boat American novitiate within the splendid Rome tasked to work at an orphanage previous to taking her wows. Like Sweeney earlier than her, she arrives on the Italian capital all wide-eyed and innocently excited as if she is the “Suspiria” dancer pirouetting into her dance academy. To Margaret, the wows of chastity and poverty she is about to take is her existential goal, particularly at a time when there may be political unrest all over the place and persons are turning their backs to the church. Nonetheless, she does let a fellow novitiate—the enthralling Maria Caballero’s Luz—gown her up in seductive garments and take her to a scorching dance membership. Why cowl their our bodies and quit on adventures before they should, Luz believes. Maybe a bit of tempted, and positively too timid to problem the assured authority of Luz, Margaret follows her lead, and wakes up alarmingly not recalling what occurred with the man she met the night time earlier than.
Elsewhere, Margaret instantly varieties a bond with Carlita performed by Nicole Sorace, an unforgettable newcomer we’ll hopefully hear extra from, delivering a efficiency each susceptible and terrifying. An eerie troublemaker like Margaret was once throughout her problem-child days, Carlita regularly settles into Margaret affection and safety, one thing that doesn’t sit nicely with the orphanage’s elders just like the strict and intimidating Sister Silva (Sonia Braga). The opposite elders within the movie vary from Invoice Nighy’s high-ranking Cardinal Lawrence and Ralph Ineson’s Father Brennan, a personality who appears to be like like he simply walked out of the set of the 1976 movie and arrived at Stevenson’s prequel. Additionally within the mazy combine is Father Gabriel, a younger priest Margaret befriends earlier than discovering herself caught deep inside a bone-chilling conspiracy the place nobody could be trusted.
