A young woman has arrived in Rome to take her vows and become a nun. However, at the home where she works, she begins to suspect something is happening to a teenage girl there, but as she digs deeper, the truth is far more horrifying…

As the title suggests, The First Omen is a prequel to the classic 1976 horror, The Omen. To be honest, I can’t help but feel one of the reasons this film exists is that the studio, upon hearing that Blumhouse were making a sequel to The Exorcist, decided to look at what horror classics they had in their vaults and felt that someone could do something with The Omen.

The story is credited to Ben Jacoby, with the film written by Tim Smith, Keith Thomas and Arkasha Stevenson, with Stevenson directing the film. The opening of the film plays well into one of the tropes often used in The Omen films, the ‘accidental’ death of a character who knows too much or is in the way in some manner.After this beginning the film settles down for a bit, introducing us to the characters, letting them breathe a bit, as the seeds of the story develop. It has to be said that the writing of these parts is not bad at all and Stevenson’s direction draws good performances from the cast.

Nell Tiger Free plays Margaret and is very good as the young woman wanting to become a nun. There is good support from Sonia Braga as Sister Silva, Maria Caballero as Luz, another soon to be nun, Nicole Sorace as Carlita, the troubled teen, Bill Nighy as a Cardinal, Ralph Ineson as Father Brennan (played by Patrick Troughton in the original film) and there is a small cameo from Charles Dance. The rest of the cast as good too.

The score from Mark Korven is good, being mostly its own thing, though certainly nodding to Jerry Goldsmith’s Oscar winning score for The Omen at moments. The film is well shot by Aaron Morton and the production design is not too bad.

In truth, there is a lot to like here.

However…

When the credits roll at the end of this film, many thoughts are going to come to mind, but for me the biggest one was why make a prequel that doesn’t work for the purpose it was intended? There are moments during the film that don’t work when you think of The Omen film. Instead you can’t help but feel the changes made to the backstory that The Omen were made because the studio has plans to make at least another film. But even if looked at from that point of view the questions left at the end are going to need a lot of explaining to work with The Omen itself.

Had the film been the first film in a reboot/reworking of The Omen trilogy, then I think it would have worked better. The ending certainly intrigues as to where they could take a second film. In fact, had they eliminated all references to The Omen trilogy, called it something else, then while it has at its core there are a number of similarities between this film and the recent horror Immaculate (nuns, conspiracies and childbirth) it would work better.

But The First Omen doesn’t do that. It ties itself directly to The Omen and sadly, by doing so it weakens The First Omen, turning it from a potentially interesting film into one that undermines itself.

It’s not a bad film, certainly a much better film connected to a classic horror film than than The Exorcist: Believer was. But as a prequel, it sadly doesn’t work.

Rating: *** out of 5