The First Omen (#537)


Wait a minute. Is this deja vu all over again? Didn’t I see this movie a week or two ago?  Well, they were pretty close. Immaculate took place in s countryside convent in Italy and featured an attractive novitiate who gives birth to a baby under bizarre circumstances and with horrible consequences.  THE FIRST OMEN takes place in an orphanage in Rome and features an attractive novitiate (who speaks more and better Italian than her film predecessor, but doesn’t scream as convincingly) who gives birth to a baby under equally bizarre circumstances and with unresolved or confused consequences.  Both suggest that the infant is either a savior or the evil incarnate.  Perhaps the filmmakers expect the audience to decide which.  Omen was far more complicated, and you couldn’t tell the good clergy from the bad. In Immaculate the girl lived in the convent; in Omen, she has an apartment and has a swinging fellow novitiate who takes her out on the town before they take their vows.  And, mercifully, Immaculate was only an hour and a half long while Omen’s 2 hours and 4 minutes felt like half a day.  One other difference.  Omen’s cast was very professional and convincing.  How did others like it?  75% of critics and 65% of audiences gave it a thumbs up.

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