Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for The First Omen.
The Big Picture
- The First Omen reimagines the birth of the Antichrist, setting up a new, darker direction for the classic franchise.
- Margaret uncovers a horrifying conspiracy within the Church to bring about the birth of evil incarnate.
- The film changes the lore of the Omen franchise, altering the origins of Damien Thorn and his conspirators.
The First Omenrevisits the classic horror franchise, showcasing a dark conspiracy that brings about the birth of the Antichrist. The film aims to connect events back to the classic 1976 film, ignoring the 2006 reboot. However, whileThe First Omendoes acknowledge and set up events tothe original featurefrom the '70s, it also breaks from canon. It takes the story in a bold, new direction that potentially sets up new entries to the franchise. The original trilogy saw the rise of young Damien Thorn, the Antichrist and son of Satan. In the opening moments ofThe Omen, Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) secretly adopts a mysterious infant of an unknown origin after learning he and his wife's child was stillborn. However, their son was actually kidnapped and later murdered, and the infant given to Robert and Katherine (Lee Remick) Thorn holds a dark and terrible secret.The First Omendepictsevents leading to the opening moments of the original 1976 feature.
The First Omen
A young American woman is sent to Rome to begin a life of service to the church, but encounters a darkness that causes her to question her faith and uncovers a terrifying conspiracy that hopes to bring about the birth of evil incarnate.
What Is 'The First Omen' About?
The First Omen follows young American novitiate, Margaret Daino (Nell Tiger Free), who travels to Rome, Italy to work at an orphanage before taking the veil. Her mentor and longtime caretaker is Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy), who assisted Margaret in her youth when she suffered from terrible hallucinations. However, the orphanage where Margaret works holds dark secrets. She observes a young girl, Carlita (Nicole Sorace), who draws disturbing, eerie pictures. On top of that, some of the other nuns in the church exhibit bizarre behavior. Soon after moving to Rome, Margaret’s unsettling hallucinations return, but are they merely figments of Margaret’s imagination? As the film progresses, it appears that much of what Margaret is imagining could be real. She does not believe the earlier warnings after a visit from Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson), an excommunicated priest.
Another nun's horrifying suicide is enough to provoke Margaret to visit Father Brennan in secret. Father Brennan reveals there is an undercover sect within the church that seeks to birth the Antichrist. The sect feels threatened by the rise of secularism and disbelievers in the world's rising and more rebellious youth. The group concocts a conspiracy to create the Antichrist they seek to control, hoping they can scare humanity into seeking the refuge of God and the Catholic Church. Father Brennan believes the cabal within the Church seeks to use Carlita as the vessel to birth the Antichrist.
The Catholic Church Aims to Birth the Antichrist
As more strange and disturbing events occur, Margaret's visions worsen. She appears to be stalked in her visions by a malevolent, inhuman force that resembles a Satanic demon or creature. At one point, Margaret sees the mark of the beast, 666, located on the roof of Carlita's mouth, proving Father Brennan's claims. While Margaret's roommate, Sister Luz (Maria Caballero), takes the veil and the other parishioners are distracted, Margaret uncovers a secret chamber, providing evidence that the church has been conducting inhuman experiments to birth an Antichrist for years, with many previous failed attempts. The cabal within the church apparently made contact with Satan, who bred multiple children to become the mother of the Antichrist. According to Father Brennan, Satan can only mate with its own offspring to birth a male Antichrist. Carlita was one of the later successful experiments who did not die after childbirth. When Margaret attempts to flee with the files and Carlita, she’s stopped by the other nuns and priests and imprisoned in the orphanage's "bad room."
Does 'The First Omen' Have an End-Credits Scene?
Are there any dark surprises waiting for you?Father Gabriel (Tawfeek Barhom), another priest sympathetic to Brennan's cause, locates the files Margaret discovered and hid, and helps her escape to find Father Brennan. Margaret notices in a photo obtained from Father Brennan that the infant's Satanic birthmark is on her head, unlike Carlita's mark on the roof of her mouth. Margaret and Father Brennan then match the stolen photo to its original file. Margaret realizes she is the infant in the photo, and the file is about her, explaining her entire life's story — the strange hallucinations, and the church's influence on her life. The conspirators groomed Margaret to become the mother of the Antichrist, and Margaret realizes she is already pregnant with Satan's spawn.
Margaret Is Revealed to Be the Mother of the Antichrist
While Father Brennan and Gabriel seek to help Margaret have the fetus aborted, their car is ambushed and struck by another vehicle. Margaret leaves the wreck relatively unharmed but begins to convulse, vomiting fluids, and her abdomen bulges as she suddenly appears to be fully pregnant and goes into labor. The conspirators return Margaret to the orphanage to oversee the birth, with Cardinal Lawrence revealing his role in the conspiracy to groom Margaret as the mother of the Antichrist. The other conspirators watch on as the distraught Margaret begs for help, giving birth to evil incarnate.
Margaret gives birth to twins: a male and a female. She asks to hold the male child, the Antichrist, which Cardinal Lawrence allows. Margaret stabs Cardinal Lawrence in the neck, killing him, and threatens to stab the infant to death, but she hesitates upon observing the infant boy's cries. The pause is enough for Sister Luz and Sister Silva (Sonia Braga) to retrieve the child, and Luz stabs Margaret. They leave the orphanage, setting it ablaze, but Margaret and the female baby are saved by Carlita. As they leave, Margaret observes an unholy creature, a jackal-like demon perishing in the blaze — the Satanic demon that impregnated Margaret.
How Does 'The First Omen' Connect to the Original Movie?
In the first epilogue, a person resembling Father Spiletto from the original film is given a file and photo of Robert Thorn from the original movie. The Catholic Church has chosen the Thorns to become the affluent parents of the Antichrist to give him power, wealth, and status, as the prophesied Antichrist will "rise from the eternal sea," or the "sea of politics" as theorized in the first movie. The sequence then depicts the conspirators kidnapping Thorn's biological son, whom Spiletto in the first film claimed was stillborn. The conspirators later murder Robert Thorn's son offscreen, and the Antichrist is brought to the hospital to give to the Thorns, directly leading into the events of the classic 1976 feature.
Sometime later, Margaret, Carlita, and Margaret's daughter have fully recovered. They escaped from Rome and are living off the grid in a remote, wintry cabin. However, they are eventually visited by Father Brennan, who survived the earlier car crash. Margaret holds him at gunpoint, fearing Brennan means to harm them. He claims the Catholic Church knows she and the other child are alive and will come after them. Margaret demands that Brennan leave her home and as he's leaving, Brennan reveals that the male Antichrist has been given a name — "Damien!" Cue the end credits and Jerry Goldsmith’s iconic "Ave Satani" theme from the original film.
'The First Omen' Makes Changes to the Omen Franchise Lore
While The First Omen seeks to connect events from the prequel to the 1976 film, there are many inconsistencies and contradictions to the original, completely rewriting the origin of Damien Thorn. In the 1976 film and later sequels, it's revealed that Damien was born from a female jackal and fathered by Satan, hence why Damien shares the blood of a jackal in Damien: Omen II. The First Omen alters that origin, so Margaret becomes Damien's biological mother. It's possible that the jackal creature, believed to be Damien's mother, was his demonic father, explaining the carcass found in the first movie. Perhaps the creature Margaret sees burning within the church is the one found in the grave marked as "Maria Scianna" in the original, and the lineage of Damien's mother and father in the original film was a mistake.
The conspiracy involving Damien's birth is also altered. In the original film trilogy, the people seeking to birth and ascend Damien are loyal to Satan and wish to bring about Armageddon. The devoted nanny, Mrs. Blaylock (Billie Whitelaw), is revealed to be another Satanic cultist and apostate to Hell. The First Omen changes this element by making the conspirators extremely devout Catholic zealots, who wish to birth an Antichrist they can control, creating a monster that humanity will fear and drive them back to religion. The backstory of Father Brennan has also been changed. In the original film, Brennan (Patrick Troughton) bears a birthmark of Satan, the sequence of sixes, suggesting Brennan was likely another member of the Satanic cult and conspiracy who sought forgiveness and redemption by revealing Damien's origin to Robert Thorn.
Will There Be More Omen Movies?![Nell Tiger Free as Sister Margaret surrounded by candles in a Church on a cropped poster for The First Omen]()
Despite its dark, disturbing, and overall ominous subject matter, The First Omen does end with the central protagonist, Margaret, surviving her terrible ordeal, along with her infant daughter and Carlita. The survival of Margaret and her daughter, also the child of the Satanic entity, potentially leaves the franchise open for future installments. Will Margaret seek to become an ally to Father Brennan and more righteous members of the church who want to expose the conspiracy to prevent the rise of Damien? Speaking to ComicBook.com, director Arkasha Stevenson is open to the idea of more films and answering questions that have arisen from the new prequel, stating, "I feel like for me, I could keep going back in time and learning how the conspiracy started, where the jackal came from. It's fun to think in both temporal directions." The saga of The Omen and Damien may yet continue.
The First Omen is in theaters now.
