The First Omen (2024) ending sets it up perfectly as a prequel to The Omen (1976), the original film that started The Omen Franchise. Directed by Arkasha Stevenson and starring Nell Tiger Free, Tawfeek Barhom, Sonia Braga, Ralph Ineson, and Bill Nighy, the film is now streaming on Hulu after a brief theatrical run last month.
Stylishly shot with gorgeous camerawork by Aaron Morton, The First Omen feels eerily similar to Immaculate (2024) – the Sydney Sweeny starrer that was the first major horror disappointment of the year. In comparison, The First Omen grounds its characters, themes, and arc in believable scenarios and manages to creep up on you without relying on tropes found in catholic horror.
While it is still not one of the best things you’ll see this year, the serviceable nature and the shocking twists make The First Omen well worth the watch. In the following article, we will examine the film in detail and discuss its events. Please be aware that the post contains spoilers. Proceed with caution.
The First Omen (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Prologue:
The film opens with an interaction between Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson) and Father Harris (Charles Dance). In the sequence, a worried Brennan tells Harris about a conspiracy of sorts within the confines of the Catholic Church involving getting a young woman pregnant by something inhuman. The child that she gave birth to is unholy. Brennan shows Harris the photograph of a baby with people from the church with the name ‘Scianna’ inscribed on it.
Since this is sort of the beginning of something truly unholy, the sequence establishes it by showing us a ‘freak accident’ in front of the church, where they are standing as Harris’s head splits into half.
Why is Rome under protest?
The film then shifts to Rome in 1971. American nun Margaret Diana (Nell Tiger Free) arrives amid left-wing protests to take her vows at the Vizzardeli Orphanage. She is welcomed to the capital city by Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy), who she has known since her time as a child in an American orphanage. Young Father Gabriel (Tawfeek Barhom) is also there to welcome her as the two of them make her aware of the political uprising that is happening in Italy and how young people are slowly developing an aversion to the Catholic Church and God in general.
Later, at the orphanage, she meets Sister Silva (Sonia Braga), who oversees the entire establishment; Luz, a fellow nun; her roommate, who is about to take her vows, too; and Sister Anjelica, who feels disturbed and out of place.
Later, Margaret goes to her lodging in the city with Luz, who feels like a free spirit trying to have some fun before she takes her vows. She invites Margeret to tag along for a good time at a nearby disco, and she reluctantly drinks a little too much. She dances with a local man named Paolo (Andrea Arcangeli) and blacks out before waking up in her lodging with Luz.
What is wrong with Carlita Scianna?
Back at the orphanage, she takes a keen interest in a young girl named Carlita. Much like Margaret herself, Carlita is plagued by disturbing visions that she often draws on paper. She is also punished for not participating in activities like other kids or rebelling against what the sisters want her to do. Margaret related to that because much of her childhood was also quite similar.
Later that day, after Margaret is upset with the way the sisters treat Carlita (by sending her to the bad room, for instance), she is sitting alone in the city somewhere when Father Brennan approaches her. To her surprise, he is aware of her name and basically warns her that Carlita is dangerous as strange and evil things often happen around her. She is taken aback by this but decides to step away as Father Brennan offers her to come meet him later that night at his address.
She then goes back to the orphanage and witnesses a woman giving birth with a strange, beastly hand coming out of her womb. She passes out of shock and wakes up to Cardinal Lawrence consoling her for having witnessed childbirth for the first time. He claims that she might be hallucinating. So, Margret tries to get on with her day, but the strangeness keeps following her.
Outside on the bench, she finds Sister Anjelica and Carlita engaged in some conversation about her drawing. When Margaret checks it, she is appalled by the drawing of a disfigured baby in the womb of a woman. She tries to dismiss Sister Angelica, but seems like she is in some form of spell, leading her to kiss Margaret on the mouth and moments later burning and hanging herself in front of everyone from the terrace.
What does Father Brennen tell Margaret?
Completely taken by the events of the day, Margaret decides to meet Brennan. He then tells her that some radicals in the church are angry that the youth and those around them have accepted to be secular, rejecting their beliefs. So, to bring them back to the church’s door and make them fear God, they plan to bring an Antichrist to life—something that will create fear in their minds, forcing them to find refuge in Christ again.
He tells Margaret that he suspects they want Carlita, who comes from a long line of Scianna people and is supposed to be the mother of this kid. He requests that Margaret help him find dirt on the church and its secretive cult-like ideologies by seeking out Carlita’s files. So, in spite of dismissing Brennan’s idea, she becomes obsessed with Carlita.
Why does Sister Silva postpone Margaret’s vow ceremony?
When they all go on a field trip the next day, Margaret tries to make Carlita speak of something bad that has been done to her. However, she is unable to because Margaret is now plagued by demonic hallucinations (the ones that she always saw as a kid). When a protest erupts, the hallucinations worsen, and Margaret loses complete control of herself. Sister Silva is a witness to it and decides that Margaret is not fit to take her vows just yet. She also firmly tells her to stay away from Carlita.
That night, Margaret sees Paolo from the disco, and when she tries to speak to him, he sneaks away, trying to avoid her. He whispers, “I don’t know!” and “Look for the mark” to her and is scared of something. However, before she can get anything out of him, a truck crushes him, cutting his body in half.
The day of taking the vow arrives, and Luz, who was supposed to take them with Margaret, begins the ceremony alone. Since everyone, including Sister Silva, is involved in the ceremony, Margaret chances upon and sneaks into Silva’s office. There, she finds a quietly hidden underground chamber that consists of a series of files that are all labeled ‘Scianna.’
The files consist of a long line of Scianna babies – most of who are disfigured with a birthmark that reads ‘666.’ Those files tell her that all these babies were either premature or had some disfigurement, leading to their early death. The only surviving Scianna from these files seems to be Carlita. So, she takes the files and tries to save Carlita by locking the two of them into her room. But Sister Silva and the others break in and drag her out.
Before she is taken away to the ‘bad room,’ Margret does notice the mark ‘666’ inside Carlita’s mouth.
The Omen (2024) Twisted Ending Explained:
Who was the other Scianna that survived other than Carlita?
When Margaret is inside the ‘bad room,’ her vision gets worse as she sees Carlita’s drawings and Sister Angelica’s spirit. However, she is saved by Father Gabriel, who was also previously approached by Father Brennan regarding the files. The two of them team up and take the files to Brennan, who finds that another baby had survived from the Scianna lineage other than Carlita since she did not have the ’666’ mark on her forehead.
This is when Margaret realizes that the child in the original photograph, the one Brennan has deemed dangerous, is actually Margaret herself.
When the mark is located, Margret is able to recall the night at the disco where she blacked out. She remembers that she was impregnated in a satanic ritual that a large group of the church people, including Sister Silva, were a part of. That was the night she was raped by a caged Devil, who needed to mate with his own spawn in order for the Antichrist to be born. Margaret was specially brought to Rome for this deed as Carlita was too young to conceive a healthy baby that the group was desperate to have.
On realizing that Margret has the antichrist in her belly, she decides to get rid of it. The three of them then drive in a car to a safe place to abort the child, but another car crashes into theirs. Gabriel dies as Brennan becomes unconscious, and Margret steps out of the car. Before she is able to understand, her belly suddenly grows tenfold, and she gets directly into labor, essentially passing out. When she wakes up, Cardinal Lawrence, who is supposedly the head of the conspiracy cult, along with his troops, is around her on an operation table.
Margaret gives birth to twins via C-section. The cult is not interested in the girl, but the boy is welcomed as the Antichrist. Later, Margaret requests Lawrence to allow her to hold her son and uses that distraction to stab him. However, in spite of wishing to do it, she is unable to kill her son. So, Luz stabs Margaret instead as the cult flees the scene with the boy, setting the chamber on fire.
It feels like it’s the end of Margaret and her newborn girl, but Carlita, who has been keeping an eye on all of this, saves the two of them. Before they leave the chamber, Margaret briefly sees a burning jackal, the one that assaulted her and impregnated her with the Antichrist.
Epilogue:
The ending of The First Omen is where things get interesting. The Antichrist is given to an American diplomat, Robert Thorn, whose newborn child is killed by the cult but portrayed as a miscarriage. They then replace the child with the antichrist.
The film shifts a few years into the future, where Margaret is living away from society on a farm with Carlita and her daughter. They seem to be a happy family before Father Brennan shows up on their doorsteps and warns her that the cult is looking for her and will not let her be. He also tells her that their son, the Antichrist, now has a name and is called ‘Damien.’
Who is Damien?
Now, people who are completely unaware that The First Omen is a prequel to the original Richard Donner classic horror film The Omen (1976) wouldn’t care for that ending and the name being mentioned with such weight. However, Damien is the center of the narrative in The Omen. The film focuses on the life of American diplomat Robert Thorn and his wife Katherine, who are now living in Rome. When their child died at childbirth, hospital chaplain Father Spiletto made Robert an offer of secretly adopting the child, who they later named ‘Damien.’
Now, Damien was a normal child for a while, but when he was five and Robert moved to London to be an Ambassador, strange happenings started to plague the Thorns. Much of the film is surrounded by the evil nature of this child and how the family tackles it. So, the ending of The First Omen perfectly sets up the original film, as well as a possible sequel where Margaret needs to face the conspiracy cult that is now after her, Carlita, and her newborn girl’s lives.
