The theatrical release of a remake, prequel or sequel often provokes a duplicitous feeling among moviegoers, between the desire to rediscover a story and characters that have marked them, and the fear of seeing that same story ruined, sacrificed on the altar of easy box-office receipts.
On April 10, 2024, The Omen saga returns to the silver screen with The Omen: The Origin, a prequel to Richard Donner's 1976 film starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick as the parents of Damien, the cursed child. Behind the camera, Arkasha Stevenson signs her first feature film after writing and directing several series episodes - including season 3 of the terrifying anthology series Channel Zero.
The young director reveals an untold part of Damien's story: the circumstances and reasons behind his birth, on June 6 at 6 a.m. (the famous 666) in Rome, in 1976. Margaret(Nell Tiger Free), a young American woman, is sent to the Italian capital to work for the Church in an orphanage. She soon comes face to face with a terrifying Church conspiracy to create the Antichrist.
A horror film with classic (some would say "old-fashioned")codes, The Curse: The Origin soberly sets its story in a gothic décor and a surprisingly modern, refreshing atmosphere - the nuns smoke cigarettes and make the rounds with the children before discussing sexuality, while the heroine swaps her nun's dress for much more affrigent clothes, before discreetly going out to party at the discotheque.
The parallel with Immaculée (in theaters at the same time) is, in fact, almost inevitable. The story is largely similar, some of the characters more than similar (the American heroine who arrives in Italy, the local friend who supports her), the same theme of demonic conception, right down to the most improbable similarities (the scene in which a nun throws herself off a building, the maze in the basement and the near-accouchement in a car), so it's almost as if they've been squinting at each other's copies.
But The Curse: The Origin offers some real graphic thrills, guaranteed to be jumpscares-free - or almost, against the backdrop of a social uprising led by young people who no longer believe in God, and which serves as a breeding ground for the Church's great plot against secularism. The film allows its actors to explore a number of facets, in particular the excellent Nell Tiger Free, while at the same time creating a climate of tension enhanced by sparingly scattered scenes of gore. All in all, a successful prequel.
