I felt scared with this one. Scared by the meanings and evidence surrounding the mythological moments throughout The First Omen. It is one of those rides where the audience will feel there is something inner within many of the characters. There is also the sense that faith is tested or not serious. With the term “not serious” I mean there is the chance those who act good are truly not. The scariness to The First Omen is the amount of misdirection in the extent while horror is gradually growing. Overall, the horror grows like plants evolving into something where the lines are blurred.
The film gears on Margaret (played by Neil Tiger Free). She is someone that is from the United States and makes her way to Rome to do service at a church. Her arrival is not very pleasing as she crosses dark allies. Many of which are in terms of births of evil spirits. The terms of the church seem to have a level of dishonesty. That is because much of the blame falls onto Margaret. Father Brennan (played by Ralph Inneson) tries to help Margaret. He knows the deeper context of the problems and that Margaret can be in grave danger.
There is no clear angle though to the film’s direction. It keeps its tunes of having its haunting elements float around along with jump scares. The film itself though, just keeps trying to be scary as it possibly can be. It does succeed at that, but lacks writing in the ultimate meaning. It is clear the film is about devils and bad spirits. Those both are in the films subject matter throughout its entirety.
The ones who also have faith in Margaret are Father Harris (played by Charles Dance) and Cardinal Lawrence (played by Bill Nighy). Two men who have been acquainted with churches and have good hearts, but most of the church does not. The lack of positive quality of people is where this film finds its shifting to seem strange. Why is Margaret the one receiving all the blames for any form of devil activities? Why is there a moment where she may be randomly possessed? The film throws in all kinds of worshipping tangents that tend to go overboard and not build a resilience to have a proper meaning of faith. The “faith” lacks purely in the context of the title and its meaning of the horror around the church.
This film feels like a repeat. I have seen fires of flames happen in the matter of sins, I have seen many where those feel possessed, and this one does those same things, but tries to do on the level of being ten times more. It still feels predictable and not special. It is purely a blur. A blur of nonsense and I was not sold with this one. I truly was not. Mostly because of how it geared so much on demonic moments rather over meaning. Two out of four stars.
Movies with Tarek 