The First Omen review: Horror prequel is much better than it needs to be

A young American novitiate travels to an Italian convent where – noting the franchise, this can hardly be a spoiler – a scheme is under way to bring Satan’s child into the world. Sound familiar? The similarities between this not-entirely-terrible Omen prequel and the recent Immaculate are positively uncanny. It’s as if some malign supernatural force has possessed the film industry.

The First Omen is not up to the standards of that recent Sydney Sweeney vehicle, but it is a darn sight better (or less bad, anyway) than we had a right to expect. Basic arithmetic will explain why an origin story to the 1976 possessed-child shocker might take us back to the turn of that decade. Margaret Daino (Nell Tiger Free, feisty) arrives to a Rome awash in both ancient light and contemporaneous discontent.

The screenwriters make modestly intelligent use of the sometimes violent political furore that was set to break out in western Europe. As Cardinal Bill Nighy explains in the car from the airport, the Catholic Church is in retreat from secularism and may have to alter its methods. His eminence is not bleeding kidding. There is a suggestion here that the entire Omen franchise is a class of false-flag operation.

Once at the convent, which also serves as an orphanage, Margaret is introduced to an archetypally severe abbess (Sônia Braga, embracing her golden years with enormous gusto) and a stereotypical mad young woman (Nicole Sorace, chewing bedposts gleefully). Not yet fully part of the family, our hero lodges in the city with a glam fellow novitiate (Maria Caballero) and prepares for a last night on the pull.

Bowel cancer: ‘I truly know what it means to live and am genuinely loving life’

---

That They May Face the Rising Sun: The best Irish film in a very long time

---

‘When our last embryo failed, the clinic told us there was nothing more they could do for us’

---

Take That in Dublin review: ‘Whose idea was it to have stairs?’ puffs Gary Barlow as the band roll back the years with dazzling show

---

On her feature-directing debut, Arkasha Stevenson has the usual sort of fun with early-1970s ambience. This is not the decade as it was (or even as shown in The Omen) but the decade as it has been romanticised ever since. Fitted shirts. Violent smoking. Italian-language versions of Boney M songs. It’s all divertingly sleazy and satisfactorily fetid. Trigger warnings are hereby issued to those troubled by gynaecological macabre and the tearing of bodies cleanly in half.

It hardly needs to be said that, as it goes on – and it does go on – the film loses coherence and slips into rampaging chaos. But, coming a year or so after that catastrophic Exorcist sequel, The First Omen feels a lot better than it needed to be. That may have to do.

The First Omen is in cinemas from Friday, April 5th