‘The First Omen’ Was Sold on Its Most Shocking Shot

Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for The First Omen and references to sexual violence

The big picture

• The first omen
  revitalizes a middling franchise with a bold and provocative approach that will baffle and surprise audiences.
• The intense tone of director Arkasha Stevenson's film included scenes of visceral and graphic body horror to explore themes of sexual assault and empowerment.
• The film faced censorship issues during production, with the MPAA allowing graphic violence, but having more concerns about sexual content.

The first omen it's a return to a franchise that may not carry as much weight as its 1970s horror contemporaries, but is iconic enough to maintain a legacy. The latest addition takes a lot from its predecessor, creating a slow-burn style horror that relies more on atmosphere and visuals than jump scares. It allows for a refreshing approach to the nearly 50-year-old franchise that is sure to leave an impression on audiences. Part of this is the result of the director's first feature film Arkasha Stevenson and his particular vision of the material. In fact, what made her stand out to the producers in her presentation was a particular image that would become something so visceralit's hard to believe that a studio owned by the Disney corporation would allow anything like this.

'The Omen' needed a new approach

The original story of a father who discovers his son is the antichrist was a huge hit when it was released in 1976. the omen it even won an Academy Award for its iconic score. Despite this, the sequels that followed, Damien: Omen II i Omen III: The Final Conflict, it turned out to be diminishing returns, and a fourth inning, Omen IV: The Awakening, it was relegated to being a TV movie that was generally reviled. The franchise sat dormant for 15 years, until a direct remake was made, possibly to take advantage of the June 6, 2006 (or 6/6/06) release date. The Omen (2006) was a certified box office hit, grossing over 100 million worldwide, but turned out to be another disappointment for fans and audiences alike. But ten years passed and it was time for 20th Century Fox to revisit the franchise.

The development for The first omen was first announced in April 2016. Along with the announcement, it was revealed that Kevin Turen i David S. Goyer would produce a prequel written by Ben Jacobydirected by Antonio Campos. Campos was fresh off the Sundance hit Cristina (starring Rebecca Hall) and would further demonstrate his dramatic chops by directing episodes of the sinner and all of The Scale. But The first omen development was delayed, likely due to Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox and the Covid-19 pandemic, and little was heard about the film until 2022. That May, it was announced that Stevenson would be the new director and that she would be rewriting the script with her writing partner Tim Smith. But the audience couldn't wait for what the two would have in mind.

How Arkasha Stevenson launched “The First Omen”

In a recent interview with Sean Fennessey activated The big picture podcast, Stevenson detailed his path to filmmaking and The first omen. Inspired by seeing Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me in a Los Angeles bar and later seeing another one David Lynch movie (wild at heart), left his career as a photojournalist and applied to Lynch's alma mater, the American Film Institute. After graduating, he made two short films which later led to his work directing TV shows like Briarpatch i legion. But it was his work directing the third season Channel Zero this showed horror fans that he had the ability to direct horror films on a grand scale. Throughout this school and professional experience, Stevenson explained: he developed an affinity for expression through body horror, finding that it helped her connect with her own body image in a strange way. Naturally, this came into play in the first meeting he had The first omen.

Although I was initially skeptical about a prequel to the omen, he read the script that had been developed and recognized many of the themes he was interested in exploring through film. Feeling underqualified, she and Smith decided the best approach was to do their best with the subject, and whether the producers would like it or not would be the right fit. Together they presented a scene where Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) see what he thinks a baby is born, but in a slow and explicit close-up, it is revealed to be a demon's hand emerging from a vagina. It's an image that Fennessey describes as “demonstrative and aggressive,” and while it is, Stevenson wasn't looking for pure shock value. For Stevenson, the pivotal scene represented the film as a whole.

“This is a film about sexual assault and the mutilated and violated female form. If we're going to tell that story, we're going to do it with images like this,” Stevenson told Fennessey. He stood his ground, and Goyer and Turen responded positively. Stevenson was offered the job and began rewriting the script with Smith. To add to the body horror, the final film includes a rather surprising sequence when Margaret quickly comes to terms with the antichrist, only to be followed by a C-section. Although the opening pitch scene eventually made it into the final film, it didn't have the easiest road to get there.

'The scene of the birth of the first omen faced censorship problems

A close-up of a vagina giving birth to a demon's hand wouldn't help raising eyebrows along the way. As Stevenson told Collider's Perri Nemiroff, the main battle to keep The first omen of receiving an NC-17 rating was how this scene was edited. Initially, Stevenson had a front view in mind and some photos of the birth when it was just getting started. But after much back and forth, they compromised to start with a profile shot and only move to the forward shot once it was clearly a demon's hand. Although it was ultimately different from what was intended, Stevenson felt that he had the full support of the producers and the studio to make it happen. What surprised her was how unproblematic the MPAA seemed to be.

He would go on to say, “We've got a pretty gory movie, we've got a lot of violence, we've got a lot of body horror. And we've also got a demon phallus, and none of that prompted an NC-17 rating.” But the MPAA has always had weird rules and more scruples about sexual content than violence or horror. For one reason or another, graphic violence can be made PG-13 (sometimes with a simple removal of blood), but a soft sex scene with natural, non-gratuitous nudity makes it a movie. movie rated R. But in retrospect, Stevenson found the scene The first omen “weirdly more graphic” after doing all the edits.

“The First Omen” revitalized the franchise

the omen it is not a franchise with the same power as the enduring one Halloween movies, nor the prestige of The Exorcist (despite the fact that these are mixed sequels). Rather, the omen it exists somewhere in between, not different The Amityville Horror, but with a slightly higher consideration. Stevenson's bold ideas that provoke and unsettle are exactly what this film needed. Despite returning to a nearly 50-year-old franchise, The first omen it's haunting and surprising, and finds a way to be relevant to today's world. While it's not yet a blockbuster, we hope that the word will spread and more people will see the pervasive images that Stevenson created.

The first omen is currently playing in theaters across the United States

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