The First Omen (2024)

Director: Arkasha Stevenson

Cast: Nell Tiger Free, Tawfeek Barhom, Sônia Braga, Bill Nighy

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Been sitting on my to-watch pile for two years, and only just now got around to it, even some time after finishing the rest of the Omen series*.

Did I Like It: A horror series coming in with its fifth mainline entry after not having anything to say for itself in ten years, and ending its original run ove forty years earlier, it might be the most restrained act of franchise work ever in film. Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson, replacing Patrick Troughton from the original) is back, but it’s not like the last reel of the film has the narrative bending over backwards to have him where he needs to be during The Omen (1976). Aside from one of the characters handing another a snapshot of Gregory Peck, the entire film could have played out as a film on its own terms. I am legitimately at loss to think of a prequel or sequel which could 100% stand on its own without just becoming a complete reboot.

Maybe, maybe—and it would be a big stretch to try—one could make the case for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) but even that film hinges a gag on Indiana not being able to open fire on some swordsman hinges somewhat on your familiarity with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).

This allows me to judge the film on its own merits. As such, its a pefectly enjoyable little religious horror thriller. It’s one hell of a lot better than The Exorcist: Believer (2023). It also manages—give or take a haircut or two—largely looks more believably of the 1970s than most other period pieces can manage.

*Except for the fourth film. Even I have my limits. I had, of course completely forgotten there was a remake in 2006 (simply because no studio executive could resist releasing something Omen-related on 6/6/06, and had absolutely no awareness that the mythos had gotten the Bates Motel treatment back in 2016.

Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

Director: Graham Baker

Cast: Sam Neill, Rossano Brazzi, Don Gordon, Lisa Harrow

Have I Seen it Before: Never. It’s an interesting byproduct of finding a good price on a movie series box set that I feel obligated to watch more sequels than I had planned to for a movie, but I should probably reserve pontificating on that unfortunate phenomenon until I force myself to watch Omen IV: The Awakening (1991).

Did I Like It: I’m trying to get caught up on some reviews as I write this, and thus the last few minutes of The Final Conflict are playing while I am typing. So, no, I’m not a fan.

Had anyone but Sam Neill played the role of the adult Damien Thorn, the film would have been forgotten beyond the point it already has. Faint whiffs of his solid performances to come* are there, but the film isn’t offering a whole lot else. There’s a lot of talking about how grave a problem the antichrist is, countered by an equal amount of talk from Damien and company about how annoying the Nazarene is.

Not the stuff of great cinema, and that is before we even start talking about how making the antichrist not a little kid anymore reduces the creepiness quotient. The movie is also withholding on the promise of its poster. Neil sits there with the seal of the President behind him, and things would be significantly more dread-inducing if Thorn was the leader of the free world, and not angling very hard to lead some commission with the UN.

At least Jerry Goldsmith pulls up on his scores, and the music here is perhaps a bit unremarkable, but a significant improvement over the orchestral grunts he had to offer in Damien: The Omen II (1978).

*He seems to think he was woefully in over his head when he did a screen test for The Living Daylights (1986), but I think he would have equated himself rather well, and if you think that was easy for me to say at our last opportunity to get Timothy Dalton in the role, you’re wrong.

Damien - The Omen II (1978)

Director: Don Taylor

Cast: William Holden, Lee Grant, Jonathan Scott-Taylor, Robert Foxworth

Have I Seen it Before: Never. The series has a real reputation of not being even worth much of a look after the original. One quick deal on the Apple movie store, and here I am. Telling that I’d probably never be able to see my way clear to watch it on disc. I don’t even know if it would go in my review, but the audio-mix on this streaming copy was one of the worst I’ve ever heard. Did that exist in the original film? No way to tell, I suppose, if for no other reason than I’m probably not going to watch the film again.

Did I Like It: I’m almost tempted to write a handful of reviews for this movie. There’s one that expresses sufficient relief that this is, in fact, nowhere near as bad as Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), which is at least something. That review would probably hit something of a brick wall when it drifts into a meditation on how much The Exorcist (1973) is better than The Omen (1976).

There’s the standard sequel review that laments the label-only sequel. The director is gone, the cast is gone, the writer is gone. All we have is some vague memories, essentially the same plot (with a useless plot twist thrown in an half-baked attempt to avoid accusations of stealing people’s money with exactly the same movie.

Also, there’s the score. The only creative behind the original to return for this film was composer Jerry Goldsmith. I love Jerry Goldsmith. I’m on the record saying that certain Jerry Goldsmith scores are my club jam. The score for Damien - Omen II (1978) is nothing more than a few weird orchestral grunts* aimed at goosing jump scares that couldn’t stand on their own.

*A thing I didn’t know existed until watching this film, but that is indeed the only way to describe them.

The Omen (1976)

Director: Richard Donner

Cast: Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Harvey Spencer Stephens

Have I Seen It Before: I wasn’t on Beyond the Cabin in the Woods when they did it, but there definitely was a moment where the remake was coming out in 2006 and I was resolute in my need to turn my nose up and only watch the original.

Did I Like It: I don’t get a sense that my opinion about the film has changed in those nearly twenty years, though. I’m never not delighted to see David Warner in anything, and the Whovian in me that developed since then was delighted to see Patrick Troughton.

Ultimately, though It’s a bit too arch to be too terribly frightening. I would imagine to audiences in the 1970s, digging in a grave and finding a jackal is frightening, but I’m reasonably sure I’ve laughed at that moment at least twice in the 21st century. Special effects are vivid and often in slow-motion to add dread of the carnage to come. But something tells me that wasn’t really David Warner’s head that got sliced off by that errant pane of glass.

Also, one feels that there are too many characters, most of whom don’t stick around long enough to either unnerve or engender sympathy. I’m consistently shocked—and have occasionally had to remind myself—that the film isn’t based on a novel or any other source material. It always feels as if they were protecting themselves from criticisms of abandoning this phantom source material, and had to give each element its due. Even then, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) abandoned all signs of Tom Bombadil, and The Godfather (1972) never checks in with Lucy Mancini until Part III runs around, at which point it completely ignores what we learned about her in the novel. Which, again, doesn’t absolve this film. It’s just overcrowded for the sake of being overcrowded.