The unsettling evil grin of a 5-year-old boy looking into the camera was imprinted on a generation of film fans with 1976’s “The Omen,” a classic horror movie full of political subtext and ghastly imagery.
That pop-culture devil's spawn Damien hasn’t reappeared over the years as much as villains named Jason, Michael and Freddy, but his potentially apocalyptic presence pervades the new prequel “The First Omen" (in theaters Friday). Taking place in Italy, it's a mystery thriller that leads up to the events of the first movie while also digging into heady themes of religion and feminism.
The original film "just disturbed me in the most fantastically wonderful way,” says “First Omen” star Nell Tiger Free. In this 1971-set chapter, young American novitiate Margaret (Free) travels to Rome to work at an orphanage before she becomes a nun and finds herself embroiled in a conspiracy within the Catholic Church to birth the Antichrist, consequences be damned.
Here’s how “The First Omen” creates a familiar but relevant world, even before Damien is brought into it:
“First Omen” co-writer/director Arkasha Stevenson points to the 1971 Jane Fonda psychological thriller “Klute” as one of her key inspirations, and she also includes an homage to the 1981 horror flick “Possession.” But most important for her was the earlier “Omen” movies. The original starred Gregory Peck as ambassador Robert Thorn, whose newborn dies and is replaced by a kid who, being the son of Satan, brings bad news to the diplomat and his wife Katherine (Lee Remick).
Subsequent sequels followed Damien as a teen and an adult. However, that first movie was part of the era's "unholy trinity" – alongside "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Exorcist" – and became "a genuine, mainstream cultural phenomenon," says producer David Goyer.
From the start, “The Omen” was “approached as a drama first and foremost,” Stevenson says. It mines the idea of a mom and dad “slowly understanding” that they don’t know their own son, which is “just so deeply relatable for a lot of parents.” And the franchise “has so much to say about the corrupt pursuit of power. That's a theme that is never going to get old."
The director also wanted to tap into the original movie’s societal tumult. Back then, “children were part of the counterculture pushing up against institutions and authority, and we are experiencing the other side of that now,” adds Stevenson, who grew up in the '90s watching "The Exorcist" and was introduced to "The Omen" by her mom. “My generation is scared of our parents' generation because of what is happening politically in our culture and how fear continues to be used as a political and spiritual weapon.”
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For Stevenson, the most memorable character in the ’76 movie is Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton), an excommunicated priest who desperately tries to convince Thorn that his kid is the Antichrist. Now played by Ralph Ineson, Brennan is also seen in “First Omen”: He warns Margaret about the insidious plan happening in the darker corners of the church and leads the young nun-to-be to protect a troubled orphan (Nicole Sorace).
In the older movie, “Father Brennan's pretty unhinged at this point. It's hard to relate to him because he's so haunted by everything that's going on,” Stevenson says. “So in order to show what a huge weight this has been on his soul,” it was really important to start him in “a very, very controlled, not happy but healthy” place.
Free sees “definitely feminist undertones” in the new movie, as it explores “questions about women and their rights and their bodies.” The original “Omen” touched on it, bringing up abortion, but the prequel leans hard into those themes: Herself an orphan brought up amid church patriarchy, Margaret has struggled since she was a kid with strange visions and “been told that she's teetering on the edge of insanity.” And ultimately, she stops trusting those who tell her that “she's bad, and that these things she's seeing are wrong and they're not real.”
Spiritualizing fear through a female-centered lens “made a lot of sense” to Stevenson. “Even in times of peace, women are living in fear constantly,” says the director, who admits “a lot of my own anxieties are expressed in this film.” She pitched the new "Omen" take to the studio in 2021 on the day Texas passed a six-week abortion ban and went to shoot the movie just as the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Stevenson even included a graphic scene of a woman giving birth to a demon: “We have a vagina in a Disney movie,” she says proudly, with producer Keith Levine adding it was a "must-keep" moment. "It was a huge part of Arkasha's vision when she walked in the door (and) lets audiences know that this movie is not messing around."
A horror fiend herself, Free appreciates the wilder material and more macabre stuff. While “First Omen” offers plenty of social commentary, she says, "we want you to leave the theater traumatized for different reasons.”
