FILM · 2024 · USA
The First Omen
19 archived facts 3 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (19)
- #001
The narrative places Cardinal Lawrence's explanation to Maggie about ongoing revolts in the middle of a scene set in 1971 Rome, where Italian citizens, including students, protest against the state and the Catholic Church. This context aligns with the historical Years of Lead, a period of far-left and far-right political unrest and terrorism in Italy that began with the 1968 movement and the Hot Autumn strikes starting in 1969, following the broader wave of European student protests that began in Paris in May 1968 and lasting until the late 1980s.
- #002
In The Omen (1976), Robert Thorn and Keith Jennings discover at the Cerveteri cemetery that Damien's mother died in childbirth and find the skeletal remains of a female jackal buried beside the murdered Thorn baby under the name Maria Scianna. The prequel changes the jackal's sex from female to male, reimagining the pregnancy mythology as forced incest rather than merely mating with an animal, and reveals that Margaret survived the forced birth and escaped with Damien's previously unknown twin sister, who was rescued by Carlita from the burning underground bunker and later lived in hiding with both her mother and half-sister, setting up potential for a sequel exploring the twin's fate.
- #003
The June 1971 setting places the prequel immediately before the prologue of The Omen (1976), which gives only "Rome, June 6., 6:00 AM" in its opening title card without specifying a year. This chronology conflicts with the Cerveteri cemetery sequence in the original film, where the tombstones of Maria Scianna and Bambino Scianna bear the inscription "OBIT VI VI MCMLXX," dating the deaths of Damien's jackal mother and the murdered Thorn baby to June 6, 1970.
- #004
A new arrangement of "Ave Satani," the choral centerpiece Jerry Goldsmith originally composed for The Omen (1976), plays in the climactic scene where cult members confirm the newborn baby as the expected male child. The theme had been held back for most of the film's runtime before being deployed at full orchestral force, reflecting its Academy Award-winning source score.
- #005
The Scianna surname links the film to The Omen (1976) through Robert Thorn and Keith Jennings's discovery at the Cerveteri cemetery, where graves marked "Maria Scianna" and "Bambino Scianna" identify Damien's jackal mother and the murdered Thorn baby. The prequel recontextualizes the name through orphanage files, revealing that the Church conspiracy, after repeatedly failing to produce a male Antichrist, bred women with the jackal to produce female children before turning to the jackal's own offspring.
- #006
The street birth scene, intensified by Nell Tiger Free's physical performance, is a deliberate homage to the subway bending scene in Andrzej Żuławski's Possession (1981) featuring Isabelle Adjani, which depicts a woman's grotesque miscarriage of an entity born from an adulterous relationship with a shape-shifting creature; director Arkasha Stevenson and Free confirmed the tribute was intentional. Coincidentally, Sam Neill appeared opposite Adjani in the same 1981 film and that same year played the grown Damien Thorn in The Final Conflict (1981), the sequel to the character introduced in The Omen (1976).
- #007
For the orphanage scenes, buildings at Villa Parisi, a neoclassical villa in Frascati about 20 kilometers southeast of Rome, and a farm in Procoio were used; production designer Eve Stewart combined these locations with a third building through editing to create a single unified structure that would appear unique and visually striking on screen.
- #008
A photograph shown near the end identifies Robert Thorn as Damien's future stepfather and uses an archival image of Gregory Peck, the actor who played Thorn in the 1976 original.
- #009
The partially contracted appearance of Cardinal Lawrence's ring and little fingers stems not from any intentional character choice or prosthetic but from Bill Nighy's Dupuytren's contracture, a hereditary condition that causes these digits to bend permanently inward toward the palm on both hands.
- #010
Principal photography took place from September 19 to November 22, 2022, in Rome and surrounding Lazio locations including Villa Parisi in Frascati, a farm in Procoio and the Palazzo dei Papi area of Viterbo. The production used three of the studio's stages for interior scenes, while historic sites in Rome formed the backdrop for the film's 1971 setting.
- #011
Margaret discovers a "666" birthmark on the roof of Carlita's mouth and later finds the same mark on her own scalp. The orphanage files examined by Margaret, Father Gabriel and Father Brennan reveal that the mark identifies all offspring born to a demonic jackal and that Margaret and Carlita are half-sisters. Under this prequel continuity, the shared parentage extends to Father Brennan as portrayed by Patrick Troughton in The Omen (1976), where the character is revealed to have the same birthmark on his inner thigh.
- #012
Italian actress Nicole Sorace made her feature film debut as Carlita, an older child ostracized at the orphanage.
- #013
The horror film's release marked the series' first installment in 18 years, following The Omen (2006).
- #014
(At approximately 7 minutes) The song briefly heard during the journey from the airport to the convent is "Some Velvet Morning," recorded by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood in late 1967.
- #015
(At approximately 31 minutes) The scene in which Margaret lies in bed with her hair spread toward the pillow after the night she spends with Luz closely resembles photographer Sally Mann's 1991 photograph At Warm Springs.
- #016
Margaret's discovery that she bears the 666 mark on her own scalp, followed by Brennan and Gabriel examining her head after comparing it with a photo of Father Harris as a healthy baby, parallels the moment in The Omen (1976) when Robert Thorn searches his son's scalp and discovers the same birthmark hidden beneath his hair, confirming that Damien is the Antichrist.
- #017
Nell Tiger Free and Charles Dance both played members of the same royal family in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011), but they never shared a scene. Dance played Lord Tywin, head of House Lannister, until season 4. Nell Tiger Free played his granddaughter Princess Myrcella Baratheon in season 5, where the character was recast as an older, teenage version.
- #018
Three actors in the film appeared in Game of Thrones (2011). Nell Tiger Free, who plays Margaret, played Myrcella Lannister; Charles Dance, who plays Father Harris, played Tywin Lannister; and Ralph Ineson, who plays Father Brennan, played Dagmer Cleftjaw.
- #019
The film shares its subject matter with Immaculate (2024) and El Convento (2026), in which a sect within the Holy Church attempts to impregnate a novice so that she will give birth to the Antichrist.
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