The First Omen

I just got out of watching this movie.

The plot is simple. The Catholic Church is conspiring to bring the Antichrist into the world. The bulk of the movie is in 1971, which is five years before the 1976 movie. This is not a coincidence, since the movie is supposed to be a direct prequel to the original movie.

It shows a time of rising secularism and riots in Rome as a young nun shows up at the Vatican to begin her work there. She was raised in an orphanage and is going to be working with orphans and children from unmarried mothers. Naturally, she winds up getting attached to the unhappiest girl there. Father Brennan is portrayed in this movie spouting the same rants as in the first movie.

This movie has some of the same elements the first movie had, such as a couple of really untimely deaths, and the priest who knows what's about to happen and is feeling guilty about his role. It also has a really tasteless birth scene. This movie does nothing to dispel stories about mean nuns who do terrible things and think they're doing God's work. But that's just the tip of the iceberg as to what's being brought about behind the scenes.

I left this movie feeling like that was an hour and a half of my life I'll never get back. I didn't much care for the weirdness present in this whole movie. It felt like a blatant rip-off of not just the original Omen movie, but Rosemary's Baby as well. If you're looking for this movie to match Biblical prophecy, you'd do better reading Mad magazine.

So, are YOU going to see this movie?