Whenever someone asks me what my favourite movie was as a child, my go-to answer is always The Omen. I can't explain why, but 10 year old me was obsessed with that movie trilogy and the adventures of Damien Thorn as he goes from misunderstood toddler to the rising star of politics. The movie has everything: suspense, mystery, a haunting score and Billie Whitelaw plays the creepiest nanny ever in cinema. While most horror fans love to brag that their first horror novel was something by Stephen King, mine was The Omen series. There’s 5 books in total covering the trilogy and what happens when the son of Satan also has a son. This led to my first ever horror movie disappointment when in 1991 The Omen IV: The Awakening was released and they took the story in a completely different direction. In 2006 we got the remake nobody asked for where the only scary element of that movie was the kid's haircut. Thankfully that never spurred any sequels. Now in 2024 we're getting a brand new movie so let's see what we know about it so far...The plot sees a young American woman named Margaret [Nell Tiger Free/Servant] being sent to Rome to begin a life of service to the church, where she encounters a darkness that causes her to question her own faith and uncovers a terrifying conspiracy that hopes to bring about the birth of evil incarnate. The film also stars Charles Dance, Bill Nighy and Sonia Braga.A prequel to The Omen, we see some familiar faces from David Seltzer’s original story as well. Ralph Ineson stars as Father Brennan [previously portrayed by Patrick Troughton] a former Satanist who was at Damien's birth and responsible for the death of Robert Thorn's child, he tried to repent his sins and whom we last saw stabbed javelin-style outside of a church. Anton Alexander is Father Stiletto [previously played by MartinBenson], the ringleader of the Satanic cult who orchestrated the birth of Damien Thorn and ended up disfigured in the hospital fire that destroyed all birth and patient records. The only character that seems to be missing - at least IMDB isn't showing anyone by her name for now - is Mrs Baylock, who was formerly Sister Maria Teresa and also an active member of the cult.David Seltzer’s novelisation of The Omen gave us more in-depth character development including some background on Father Brennan (whose story could be a horror/thriller movie on it’s own), the cult that was made up mostly of working class people and whose main purpose was the pursuit of carnal pleasure and creating as much chaos and violence among the people as possible (things definitely shown in the trailer!), and with the knowledge that this was the third time the child of Satan was to be born, the previous two times – in 1092 and 1710 – were foiled by members of the Bugenhagen family. We don’t really know when Father Brennan joined the cult but it is assumed it’s around the late 60’s, and with Damien Thorn born in 1970 this prequel has to be the lead up to that event. So I guess the next question is…how badly did anyone need to see a jackal impregnated?The First Omen is directed by Arkasha Stevenson with a story by Ben Jacoby and a screenplay by Tim Smith, Stevenson and Keith Thomas [Director of 2022's Firestarter]. I'm going to try and not judge the lack of resume between them before I've seen the movie for myself, but hopefully so many inexperienced writers don't deliver an abomination of a storyline because there's only so many times you can watch a film studio shit on a classic.
The First Omen will be released exclusively in Australian and New Zealand cinemason April 4th, 2024 by 20th Century Studios.
[videopress vquFjTiP]
