The First Omen: Movie Review

Cast: Nell Tiger Free, Bill Nighy, Ralph Ineson, Sonia Braga
Director: Arkasha Stevenson

Skirting dangerously close to the same ideas as Sydney Sweeney's recent release Immaculate, The First Omen delivers a slice of period chills that feels like a very slow burn in places, and feels somewhat stymied by the fact it has to segue into the 1976 original film which birthed Damien into the world.

However, director Arkasha Stevenson's latest, the sixth Omen story in the franchise, benefits greatly from an impressive performance by Nell Tiger Free as novitiate Margaret, who's called to a Rome convent and orphanage by Bill Nighy's avuncular priest.

Upon her arrival, Margaret's life becomes intertwined with that of a segregated young girl and of a desperate ex-communicated priest who warns her trouble lies ahead...

With an atmosphere of foreboding and an increasing sense of tension, Stevenson's film delivers on the requisite jump scare moments you'd expect from the horror genre as well as a sense of tension - even if the film has to reach a foregone conclusion to bridge its way into the 1976 classic.

But it also benefits from the sheer physicality of Apple TV+'s Servant star Nell Tiger Free, who in one scene late in the movie blows everything off the screen with just one single moment. There's subtlety in her performance throughout though that is occasionally lacking elsewhere as the tone becomes more hysterical.

Nighy and Ineson are saddled with the great weight of exposition throughout, so much so that in its final strait, the movie becomes bogged down in its own Omen mythology as it rushes to its pre-ordained denouement.

Yet the ride to get to that point is more than satisfying thanks to its visceral and searing take on abuse within the Catholic Church.

From tensions over whether Margaret is hallucinating to explosive riots troubling 1970s Italy, the film does its best to unnerve, unhinge and generally upset. With explicit body horror moments and some deeply unsettling imagery, it largely succeeds.

But an over-reliance on schlock rather than shock cripples The First Omen from keeping its intentions pure, instead providing a devilish journey to a pre-destined point that has some bite, and is the perfect Autumn late night treat as the dark nights draw in.