"The First Omen" approaches the whole franchise in much the same way as George Lucas did with his "Star Wars" prequels (1999-2005). Lucas took some ideas which had only been hinted at in the dialogue and then he simply expanded upon them. The "Omen" film which emerges here using this same method has been superbly directed by Arkasha Stevenson and it does manage to create a particularly threatening atmosphere which is allowed to subtly develop from the very beginning and then it gradually comes to the forefront and eventually permeates everything by the end. The idea of a sinister conclave existing within the church and working its own agenda is a magnificent concept and it has been marvellously used here with deeply disturbing results. However, it is somewhat unfortunate this film also resembles "To The Devil A Daughter" (1976) at least in the beginning. This realisation hits home almost as soon as Margaret makes her first appearance on screen and the moment of revelation which comes much later on has no real impact at all because of it.

I really don't see the point of making a prequel that retcons the original films. Hollywood does it all the time, and when you hear the creators it is always to own the fans in some way. As in: "this will anger the fans of the original" I don't understand how they think it's a good idea given that the fans are the reason the movies are worth making sequels, prequels, and reboots of. So they seem to intentionally NOT want the fans to see it, and then are always angered when the movies fail. But sometimes it's because Hollywood hires people who proudly didn't see the source material and then don't require them to watch the source material. In either case they always seem shocked when the movie fails. I read the plot and... didn't see it until fate made me, and the reason I didn't see it is because they outright said what they retconed. I'm not sure if it failed or not, but watching through it I couldn't help but think "Why rewrite the Omen? Why does my wife want to watch this?" and then when it was over "Well, yeah, I can understand why you don't like it honey, you're right, they changed too much."

Why does the modern horror community settle for such mediocrity in film making? Don't be so lazy and settle for the usual unfulfilling, stereo typical Hollywood dreck such as this. There are so many fantastic indie horror movies being made out there.