Movie Review: 'The First Omen' Starring Nell Tiger Free

The First Omen (2024)

Directed by Arkasha Stevenson

Written by Tim Smith, Arkasha Stevenson, Keith Thomas

Starring Nell Tiger Free, Sonia Braga, Ralph Inseson, Bill Nighy

Release Date April 5th, 2024

Published April 5th, 2024

The First Omen isn't so much of a movie as it is a widget. I mean widget in its first definition, not the internet definition. The First Omen is a product created by a committee who were given budget and a deadline and told to create a sellable product. The people who made it may be of the highest talent and may create a terrific product, but there is no escaping the widget comparison. If The First Omen were not connected to a studio owned franchise, it would not exist and the people who made it, likely would never have worked together. A studio had a product that it wanted made. The studio chose a product manager, a team lead, and a group of people to run the factory floor and they crafted a product for consumption in the market place.

You can say 'that's most movies' and I don't disagree with you. But, you can sense when someone is making a passionate work of art, a deep expression coming from the soul of a genuine artist. And, you can tell when someone is tasked with producing a widget, when they are accomplishing an assignment with a budget and deadline and not a work of a passionate soul. This is not to simply say that by its nature, The First Omen is a bad movie, it's not poorly made. It's a terrific widget. But a widget will never be a transcendent work of art. It will always be a functional mass produced consumer product, no matter how good the effort was to create it.

The First Omen stars Nell Tiger Free as Sister Margaret, a troubled young Nun who has come to Rome at the behest of her loving mentor, Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy). Cardinal Lawrence was once a humble Priest who helped Margaret survive a difficult childhood in a Massachusetts orphanage. Now, he's using his power as a Cardinal in Vatican City to get Margaret a place at a church run orphanage in Rome, in 19171. It's a heady change for Margaret who turned to God after growing up tormented so badly by visions that she thought she might lose her mind. She still occasionally has horrific visions of the abuse her mind tells her did not actually occur.

At the orphanage, Sister Margaret finds herself drawn to Carlita (Nicole Sorace), an older orphan who is almost always in trouble. Carlita spends a good deal of her time in 'The Bad Room.' Sensing that Carlita can relate to what Margaret herself went through as a child, Margaret spends more and more time trying to coax Carlita to talk about what she has been going through. It is at this time that Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson) seeks out Margaret to warn her about what is happening to young Carlita. It involves a conspiracy at the highest level of the church, an unthinkable conspiracy aimed at bringing people back to the church by terrifying them into believing again.

On a technical and performance level, there isn't all that much wrong with The First Omen. It's just rather rudimentary overall. The First Omen is building toward an ending that many of us are quite familiar with, the moment when Gregory Peck's Ambassador Thorn is told that his baby has died but that the church has a replacement baby to give him, one that will prevent his wife from having to mourn the loss of their child. Making a Faustian bargain, we know that Thorn is sealing his own fate, that he will become the father to the Anti-Christ, the father of Damian.

The functional nature of The First Omen is further laid bare by knowing that little of what you see occur in The First Omen matters. We know how the movie is going to end. We know going in that Team Evil, Team Anti-Christ, is taking the dub at the end of the movie. Damian will be born and delivered to Thorn, that's written in the stone of this being a prequel to a well known franchise horror movie. So, minus suspense, what are we left with. I guess we have the fate of Sister Margaret, does she die? Does she rescue Carlita? What happens to her garners a modest amount of suspense but only because both Margaret and Carlita, in the larger scope of The Omen, are disposable characters.

The direction of The First Omen is professional and polished. Arkasha Stevenson delivers a terrific widget. It's durable and functional. Occasionally, this widget is a party to something cool happening. There are a pair of car accident scenes in The First Omen that have a gruesome quality that I genuinely admire. The first of the two car wreck scenes pays off in a terrifying and gross bit of body horror. The second car accident scene is violent, bloody, and features a stand out acting moment for star Nell Tiger Free to rip into this role and rend her very soul. That's pretty cool to watch.

The First Omen is better than the original The Omen. That's not a high bar to surmount as I don't have a high opinion of The Omen, 1976. The original The Omen is a turgid bore of a movie featuring a lead performance by the legendary Gregory Peck that is delivered through gritted teeth. Peck isn't so much a leading man in The Omen as he is a kidnapping victim delivering lines written for him by his kidnappers and hoping to escape with his life and dignity in tact. I will say this for Nell Tiger Free in The First Omen, she seems to want to have been in this movie and delivers a full bodied, committed performance that I genuinely admire.

Find my archive of more than 20 years and more than 2000 movie reviews at SeanattheMovies.blogspot.com. Find my modern review archive on my Vocal Profile, linked here. Follow me on Twitter at PodcastSean. Follow the archive blog on Twitter at SeanattheMovies. Listen to me talk about movies on the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast. If you have enjoyed what you have read, consider subscribing to my writing on Vocal. If you'd like to support my writing, you can do so by making a monthly pledge or by leaving a one time tip. Thanks!