Since the first trailer for upcoming horror prequel The First Omen landed online, genre fans have been speculating as to what the trippy-looking movie will actually be about.
Directed by Arkasha Stevenson, the movie follows a young woman (Nell Tiger Free) as she travels from the US to Rome to start a new life of religious servitude. Once there, though, she finds herself wrestling with a darkness so great it causes her to question her faith.
"To control those who don't believe, create something to fear," the teaser's tagline reads, as a series of clips suggest that Ralph Ineson, Sonia Braga, and Bill Nighy's clergy are hellbent on committing the ultimate sin: orchestrating the birth of the Antichrist. While there's next to no dialogue in the clip, which makes it hard to know for sure, it appears as if the ungodly trio are inducing possessions and welcoming babies, an act that looks set to bring about children much like The Omen's wicked Damien Thorn. (Did we mention it's a precursor to Richard Donner's chilling classic?)
Free, however, has yet to see an hypothesis online that proves accurate. "I have a tendency to trawl YouTube comments when it's four in the morning and I can't go to sleep," she tells SFX magazine in the new issue, which features Star Trek: Discovery season 5 on the cover. "I'm enjoying looking at everybody's theories [about the trailer] because everybody's wrong, baby!" We should expect the unexpected, then? She nods, amused. "Everybody is wrong! I hope we scare the shit out of people."
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Elsewhere in the chat, Free, who is perhaps best known for playing unhinged nanny Leanne in the M. Night Shyamalan-produced Apple TV Plus series Servant, said that she can't wait for those who have little hope in the continuation to be proven wrong when they see what Stevenson and co. have conjured up.
"Let's call a spade a spade here: the bar for these kinds of prequels and sequels and remakes, especially with these iconic horror franchises, is not particularly high," she says. "I think expectations might be low. It will be satisfying to show what we’ve made because I don't think that it's what people are going to be expecting, whatsoever."
The First Omen releases on April 5. The above is just a snippet from our interview, available in the latest issue of SFX magazine, which features Star Trek: Discovery season 5 on the cover and is available on newsstands from Wednesday, March 20. Check out the cover below...
There’s a new issue of @SFXmagazine beaming down with subscribers shortly, and in stores from 20 March! World exclusive new #StarTrek interviews, plus the making of #DoctorWho and much, much more! Support physical media, buy magazines! 🖖 pic.twitter.com/hIflvP7FVnMarch 15, 2024
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