The First Omen-2024’s Other Nunsploitation Horror FIlm

It's fascinating how much in common The First Omen has with Immaculate. Both films are nunsploitation horror about women having their bodies controlled by a religious group and birthing the antichrist. And it's not just in the general plot and premise, as there are scenes throughout both films that mirror each other almost exactly. Both films introduce their main character in a scene where the main character meets up with someone at an airport in Rome. Both films feature an expository sequence of the main character getting a tour of the primary religious setting where they notice strange occurrences. Both films also feature a nearly identical scene where the main character details their upbringing in a Rural American town.

The main difference that sets the two films apart is the pacing. While Immaculate, with its 87-minute runtime, wasted no time before getting into the intense, brutal, and bloody sequences, The First Omen is far more meticulous in its pacing. The film takes its time, setting up intrigue in its story and creating an overall chilling and unnerving atmosphere. The film is quite successful in this, as it builds up tension that it then releases in sequences featuring some genuinely shocking and frightening imagery, some of which truly push the film's R-rating.

Between the two films, I found that The First Omen is much more successful in its commentary on religious groups' control over women's bodies, as the film takes a more subtle approach to this theme than Immaculate did. The religious group in The First Omen brings about the conspiracy due to fear of political unrest and the rise of secularism, which provides an understandable motive for the film's antagonists and a compelling angle to explore this story. By comparison, the antagonists' motives in Immaculate stem from a vague attempt to play god, which, while a compelling motivation in its own right, feels much more bland by comparison.

Although I admired how much the film attempts to build up intrigue and atmosphere in its early sections, I felt it spent too much time doing this. Much of the film's early sections felt quite dull and uninteresting. The film attempts to give itself an emotional core in the relationship between the main character and a little girl named Secila. But I didn't find the relationship between the two all that compelling, as I could never emotionally connect to the relationship as much as the film wanted me to. I also felt the film spent too much time on the relationship, especially since it felt like it was mostly there to act as a red herring for the film's fairly obvious twist. The film also finds itself haphazardly attempting to fulfill its role as a prequel by the end, with a final scene that features one forced franchise reference after another.

While I found it to be a flawed film, there's no denying that The First Omen successfully provides this chilling atmosphere, which it releases in some genuinely unsettling sequences, especially in the film's third act. Between the two nunsploitation horror films released this year, I prefer The First Omen slightly more. Pacing issues and other grievances aside, the film feels more successful in the themes it explores. And while I still admire the bloodiness and brutality of the imagery in Immaculate, I felt much more unsettled about The First Omen's atmosphere and imagery.

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