Movies
‘The First Omen’ – First Image From ‘The Omen’ Prequel Goes Up In Flames!
Today, 20th Century Studios released a first look at its upcoming psychological thriller The First Omen.
The film, which is a prequel to the classic horror film franchise, will open April 5, 2024, exclusively in theaters nationwide.
In the film…
“When a young American woman is sent to Rome to begin a life of service to the church, she encounters a darkness that causes her to question her own faith and uncovers a terrifying conspiracy that hopes to bring about the birth of evil incarnate.”
The First Omen stars Nell Tiger Free (“Servant”), Tawfeek Barhom (“Mary Magdalene”), Sonia Braga (“Kiss of the Spider Woman”), Ralph Ineson (The Witch, Onyx the Fortuitous), and Bill Nighy (“Living”).
The film is directed by Arkasha Stevenson, based on characters created by David Seltzer (“The Omen”), with a story by Ben Jacoby (“Bleed”) and a screenplay by Tim Smith & Arkasha Stevenson and Keith Thomas (Firestarter).
The original 1976 classic, which starred Gregory Peck, Lee Remick and Harvey Stephens, followed an American ambassador who believes his five-year-old son is the Antichrist.
That film spawned three sequels, including 1978’s Damien: Omen II and 1981’s The Final Conflict, as well as the 2006 reboot. There was also a short-lived “Damien” television series.
The producers are David S. Goyer (Hellraiser) and Keith Levine (The Night House) and the executive producers are Tim Smith, Whitney Brown (“Rosaline”), and Gracie Wheelan.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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