The First Omen

Directed by Arkasha Stevenson, The First Omen follows a young nun (Nell Tiger Free’s Margaret) as she arrives at an Italian convent and eventually uncovers a malevolent conspiracy. Filmmaker Stevenson, armed with a script written alongside Tim Smith and Keith Thomas, does a fantastic job of initially luring the viewer into the increasingly underwhelming proceedings, as The First Omen kicks off with a compelling (and very promising) opening that even boasts a fun callback to the original Omen – with the picture, beyond that point, seguing into a deliberate yet watchable first half that benefits from Aaron Morton’s old-school visuals and Tiger Free’s compelling, sympathetic performance. It’s disappointing to note, then, that one’s interest and attention is slowly-but-surely drained by a meandering, repetitive midsection with progressively few compelling attributes (ie Margaret encounters one sinister occurrence after another), with the frustratingly stagnant atmosphere compounded by a narrative that grows more and more difficult to comfortably follow (ie it becomes awfully difficult to discern what’s actually happening versus what’s just in Margaret’s head) – which, despite the inclusion of a decent final stretch that leads directly into Richard Donner’s original film, ultimately does cement The First Omen‘s place as a lamentably misguided misfire.

** out of ****