The First Omen
The 1976 Omen is one of the great supernatural horror films. Robert Thorn is an American diplomat who discovers his son may be the Antichrist. The film is about a father trying to protect his family from a truth too terrible to accept. The Church figures in it are warnings and helpers.…
Full analysis below
Want to know what's safe to watch? Get our weekly guide to new reviews and woke-free picks. No spam, ever.
This film draws you in for a significant portion of its runtime with traditional or neutral content before springing its woke agenda. Know before you go!
The First Omen qualifies as a woke trap on a technical basis: the negative margin (-7) is real, and the full scope of the anti-Catholic conspiracy deepens significantly in the second half of the film. The first act presents itself as atmospheric religious horror in the Omen tradition: a young American woman arrives in Rome, something feels wrong, and the mystery begins. The anti-institutional Church messaging is present from early on but the full revelation that senior Church leadership is actively orchestrating the Antichrist's birth as a calculated response to declining religious authority only crystallizes past the midpoint. Families who enter expecting a supernatural thriller comparable to the 1976 original should be aware that this film carries a substantially more anti-Catholic institutional framing than its predecessor.
Our Verdict on The First Omen
The 1976 Omen is one of the great supernatural horror films. Robert Thorn is an American diplomat who discovers his son may be the Antichrist. The film is about a father trying to protect his family from a truth too terrible to accept. The Church figures in it are warnings and helpers. The institution exists as context.
The First Omen is not that film.
Arkasha Stevenson's prequel is about where the Antichrist came from, and her answer to that question is specific: the Catholic Church made him. Not a rogue priest. Not a Satanic cult operating in the Church's shadows. The Church's leadership. Cardinal-level decision-making. They decided the world needed a supernatural threat to drive it back toward religion, and they engineered it.
This is a significant ideological departure from the original.
Nell Tiger Free plays Margaret, a young American woman sent to Rome to begin religious service. She's earnest and faithful and trusting, which makes her the perfect victim. Every institution she relies on has already decided what her body will be used for before she arrives. The horror is about discovering that truth.
She's good in the role. The film is well-made. Stevenson knows horror craft: slow dread, religious imagery reframed as threat, the camera treating sacred spaces like prisons. Mark Korven's score uses liturgical choral elements as dissonance. The work is technically accomplished.
But here's the thing about The First Omen: it knows exactly what it is and it commits to it completely. The film is a feminist horror movie about female bodily autonomy violated by male-dominated religious institutions. Stevenson said so in interviews before the film came out. The VVWS score reflects that intent.
The saving grace is that the film treats its supernatural premise seriously. The Antichrist is real. The conspiracy is trying to birth actual evil. Catholic faith and sacraments are treated as having genuine power when uncorrupted. The film believes in its mythology, which is a traditional instinct even when wrapped in progressive framing.
Margaret's final act is genuinely moving: a woman who has lost everything protecting an innocent through personal sacrifice. That's traditional human instinct cutting through the ideological scaffolding. It's the best scene in the film.
Final verdict: WOKE LEAN at -7 WOKE. Technically accomplished, ideologically pointed. Catholic viewers should know what they're getting. Horror fans who can separate craft from politics will find something worth watching. Everyone should go in with eyes open.
Woke Tropes & Content Analysis
Formula: Weighted Score = Severity × Authenticity Multiplier × Centrality Multiplier
🔴 Woke Tropes
| Trope | Severity | Authenticity | Centrality | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Catholic Church Leadership as Active Satanic Conspiracy | 4 | High | High | 5.04 |
| Female Protagonist as Victim of Patriarchal Religious Authority | 3 | High | High | 3.78 |
| Male Religious Authority Figures as Predatory Manipulators | 3 | Moderate | Moderate | 3 |
| Sexual Assault and Bodily Violation as Core Horror Engine | 3 | High | Moderate | 2.1 |
| Female Bodily Autonomy as Thematic Center | 2 | High | Moderate | 1.4 |
| TOTAL WOKE | 15.3 | |||
🟢 Traditional Tropes
| Trope | Severity | Authenticity | Centrality | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supernatural Evil as Genuinely Real Force | 3 | High | High | 3.78 |
| Catholic Faith and Sacraments Treated as Real and Powerful | 2 | Moderate | Moderate | 2 |
| Maternal Sacrifice and Protective Instinct as Climactic Value | 3 | High | Moderate | 2.1 |
| TOTAL TRADITIONAL | 7.9 | |||
Score Margin: -7 WOKE
Director: Arkasha Stevenson
LEFT-LEANING - Feminist horror sensibility, institutional religion as patriarchal oppression frameworkStevenson is a first-time feature director who came out of horror television. Her approach to The First Omen is explicitly feminist: she views the film as a story about female bodily autonomy violated by male-dominated religious institutions. In interviews she discussed wanting to 'reclaim' the horror of the original Omen by centering the experience of the woman whose body is used to birth evil rather than the male characters who fight it. That framing is not a neutral creative choice. It produces a film where the Catholic Church's institutional hierarchy is the villain and a woman's body is the battlefield. The supernatural horror serves this theme rather than the other way around.
Content Breakdown
Adult Viewer Insight
The First Omen is a film made by people who believe the Catholic Church is a patriarchal institution that controls women's bodies, and it deploys significant filmmaking craft in service of that conviction. For adult viewers, the film presents a dilemma worth examining: can you appreciate technically accomplished horror when you reject its ideological premises? The answer is not simple. Arkasha Stevenson knows how to build dread. Nell Tiger Free gives a performance that deserves a better film wrapped around it. The cinematography treats Rome as a prison of ancient stone and shadow. The score uses sacred music as dissonance. The craft is real. But the film's argument -- that the Church's male leadership conspired to create the Antichrist through forced impregnation -- is not a genre exercise. It is a declaration. Stevenson said in interviews that the film is about female bodily autonomy. The Church is the antagonist not because it harbored a secret Satanic cell but because it is the Church. The institution itself is the horror. For Catholic adults, this is the line that divides scary movies from blasphemy, and crossing it is a matter of conscience. For non-Catholic adults, the film functions as an accidental case study in how thoroughly anti-religious sentiment has colonized prestige horror. The most interesting element, oddly, is the film's treatment of the supernatural. The Antichrist is real. The sacraments have power when uncorrupted. Margaret's final sacrifice is genuine. The film believes in its mythology even as it uses that mythology to indict the institution that protects it. That is a more interesting tension than the film's politics acknowledge. The First Omen is worth watching for adults who want to understand the state of horror filmmaking in 2024 and who can engage with ideological opposition without being damaged by it. Catholics should use discretion.
Parental Guidance
The First Omen is rated R for violent content, grisly images, and brief graphic nudity. It is a horror film in the tradition of religious horror and is not suitable for children or young teenagers. The film contains disturbing imagery throughout: a nun self-immolates in the opening scene; characters are shown in states of religious ecstasy that blur into possession; surgical and medical procedures are performed without consent in a horror context; a character gives birth in a scene designed for maximum discomfort. Body horror is a recurring element: pregnancy, forced impregnation, and the corruption of the female body are the film's central horror metaphors. The film also contains a scene of animal death. Nudity is brief but graphic (non-sexual, in a horror context). The film's treatment of the Catholic Church is uniformly hostile: the Church hierarchy is depicted as complicit in the creation of the Antichrist through a conspiracy to violate female bodily autonomy. Catholic viewers, in particular, may find the film's depiction of their faith distressing. The film also contains positive elements: Margaret's courage in protecting an innocent child, her eventual self-sacrifice, and the film's treatment of supernatural evil as real rather than metaphorical. The sacraments and faith are depicted as having genuine power, which paradoxically makes the film more disturbing rather than less. Not recommended for anyone under 17. Catholic parents in particular should pre-screen or avoid. This is a well-made horror film whose craft amplifies rather than mitigates its ideological hostility to the Church.
Is The First Omen Safe for Kids?
[object Object]
Find The First Omen on Amazon Prime Video, rent, or buy:
▶ Stream or Buy on AmazonAs an Amazon Associate, VirtueVigil earns from qualifying purchases.
Community Discussion 0
Subscribe to comment.
Join the VirtueVigil community to share your perspective on this review.