This would’ve never been allowed to happen under the Warrior Nun’s watch. Thanks a lot, Netflix.

First Things First: What the hell was that random wall of sculpted body parts in the entryway of that first church?

Brief Thoughts: Though I may have a minor soft spot for some nuns (again, fuck you Netflix, Sister Act, Sister Michael from Derry Girls), I tend to hesitate when it comes to within-the-church horror because I don’t want to run the risk of witnessing the glorification of any priests being the last line of defense against the scourges of Hell — it takes far more than a few awesome older men in the cast to sway my good favor (Charles Dance, Bill Nighy, Ralph Ineson and his glorious voice on full display here). Good thing The First Omen opens up with one beautifully framed scene of danger raining down from on high on a couple of collared folk; from this point on I knew I was in good hands. Praise be.

Favorite Line #1: “How do you control people who no longer believe in your stories of fire and brimstone? People who do not seem to fear? You create something to fear.”

Brief Thoughts (Cont.): The First Omen may keep its hymnal close to the chest for the first half hour or so as we test the holy waters of what seemingly presents itself to be a typical, slowly revealed do “bad” things, win bad demonic possession prizes film, but once the transition progresses from Margaret’s pure, blind trust to her untethered descent as she begins to feel abandoned in her faith — the whispered prayers slowly blending in quiet, hallucinatory voices more and more as the film goes on is another genius detail — once that operatic chorus of old women ghosts going oooOOOOoOoOooooh really gets going, and once the film reveals its true face as a very big fuck you to those good ol’ fashioned “Christian values” that are warring against a woman’s right to body autonomy, I was fully onboard. 

Favorite Line #2: “I realized that I’m not bad. They just tell you that you are cuz you’re not doing what they want you to do.”

Brief Thoughts (Cont. Again): The movie is beautifully shot, framed, and edited as it picks its moments perfectly to catch viewers off guard with some surprising and upsetting imagery (THAT HUG), Nell Tiger Free is a force as Margaret — there is one scene of hers that convinced me to finally start a “Best of 2024” Google doc on the off chance I might actually post a year end list for once — and oh boy did that messaging have me enraged. It had me as fired up as the deepest pits of Hell.

One Last Thing: There is nothing more upsetting than someone saying “I won’t let anything bad happen to you” as they just stand there and watch some very, very bad things happen to you.

Final Thoughts: Fuck you, fearmongering abusers within religious institutions! And one last time, just for fun, fuck you Netflix.

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The First Omen is now streaming on Hulu.