The First Omens wobbles continuously on the balance beam of bad that I feel kind of guilty scoring it higher than Immaculate. Not just because the two films are shockingly similar (and it’s not Omen’s fault it came out a week later). The fact is, neither film has a monopoly on a very familiar plot. But The First Omen manages to… I dunno… be a bit better than I thought it was going to be at various points in the show.

The flick tells the desperately needed <eyes roll> story of how The Omen’s Damian is born and handed over to Gregory Peck. It follows a young American nun (initiate) as she travels to Rome to work at an orphanage. Where strange things are afoot and probably the devil too. 666, yo. It’s back!

This is a long-ass movie for something that really only needs to be 90 minutes. They stuff in some cheap jump scares but not as many as I was predicting… and they make hand-wavy ties to the original Omen (until it goes full hog in the final act). There are some scare moments that actually made me chuckle… like maybe leave the guy in the car accident alone or, you know, that R rated Looney Toons moment could happen.

There’s also a twist that everyone could see coming and some gross-out moments that go Ick Factor 5. Moments similar enough to Immaculate that it made me think, “Wow… that other nun movie had more restraint… who know?” This flick might go a little too high on the squirm counter (at least based on my audience reaction).

But I did like the final act a fair amount and it did a commendable job of not only tying into The Omen but showing how they can continue as an off-shoot franchise. Kind of The Omen Gaiden. And I’d kind of welcome a parallel story… maybe a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (or Lion King 1 1/2) dealio. But that might be asking too much creativity of Hollywood based on this somewhat saggy flick.

Overall, this is a decently watchable but very, very familiar nun-like horror flick. Even without Immaculata’s shadow hanging over it, it wouldn’t be remotely original. But it holds up fairly well for what it is doing (despite my inappropriate chuckles) to make me look forward to a sequel. Kinda. A bit.

Score: 75