The First Omen (2024)

Day 14 of Sobriety.  

When I heard that a new Omen movie was coming out, my first reaction was just to sigh and mentally relegate it to the ever-growing garbage heap of unnecessary and unwanted remakes and reboots, where it could fester together with the recent Halloween and Exorcist debacles. No way was I going to see it—ignoring is always the best option with these things. But then, gods forgive me, I started paying attention to the reviews, which were almost all positive. So, I paid my money, bought my popcorn, and sat in the theater with about ten other mugs—mostly very young people—on a rainy Monday night.

I went in optimistic, and it had me at first. The opening scene was of a dialogue between two priests, played by The Witch star Ralph Ineson and his Game of Thrones co-star Charles Dance—two actors that I like. It was an effectively shot opening punch that was also a homage to the original 1976 film. Then the action shifted to beautifully shot 1971 Rome, accompanied by Mark Korven’s excellent evocative score and superb mood-setting period music like Lee Hazelwood’s Some Velvet Morning and some Ennio Morricone that sounded pilfered from one of his gialli soundtracks. All big thumbs up from me! I had heard that the film recaptured the spirit and feel of classic 1970s horror, and the period Euro setting was the icing on the cake. I love all of that stuff.

So, it was off to a great start, but it wasn’t too long before things started to trundle steadily downhill. I think it was around the midway point that, despite the nice cinematography and excellent music, it started to dawn on me that the actual plot was, to be frank, completely dumb, in addition to being plain dull. The “shocking” revelation that comes about three-quarters of the way through could have been guessed by anyone. The characters are, despite some good performances, two-dimensional unbelievable cliches. The film also commits one of the worst crimes of such prequels/sequels, which is to completely disrespect the original film by trampling all over key plot points. And yes, right on cue—about fifteen minutes before the end—there’s the cruddy CG monster. Raaar. By that time, though, I was really beyond caring about anything that was happening on the screen. All hopes had been dashed.

The worst part is that (evident from the various loose threads left dangling) they are clearly planning to make more of these travesties, and as this film seems to have been pretty well received, they will doubtless green-light their diabolical plans. It's all most unfortunate, but at least I’ll know better than to pay to see the next movie—or to bother watching it at all for that matter.

A personal aside: if anyone were actually reading this blog, they might notice that my number of sober days at the top of the page has plummeted from 174 to 14. That’s because I had a drink. An old friend of mine who lives overseas, who I only get to see once every few years, came to visit, and we always enjoyed going out for a drink (i.e. getting drunk) together. So, just a few days shy of six months sober, I decided to have a drink with him. It was a conscious decision rather than an impulsive slip, and the next day I just got back on the wagon. That was exactly two weeks ago now. It hasn’t become a problem at all in terms of returning to bad drinking habits, and I don’t regret it, but I am still processing the incident and what it means for me as the “Sober Horror Fan.”

Can it possibly be that—despite having failed to do so for almost two decades—I am now able to exercise some genuine control over my drinking? Has something changed somehow? Can I now be a “social drinker?”—The impossible phantom holy grail for so many alcoholics.

These thoughts make me nervous, because I know that they bring a smile to the lips of the beast. Another set of rules: “I will only drink with other people—never alone,” “I will only drink once a month…,” etc., etc. The beast smiles because he knows that has found his way in. Again.

Or maybe not? I really don’t know, but in the meantime, I will be treading very lightly and very cautiously.