- Directed by Arkasha Stevenson
- Written by Tim Smith, Arkasha Stevenson, Keith Thomas
- Stars Nell Tiger Free, Ralph INeson, Sonia Braga, Bill Nighy
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 59 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4xk8yLiFwM
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This one didn’t work for The Horror Guys. Too many things were like the first Omen movie, which came across as lazy. They tried changing and adding things to the mythos as if it was a requel. And it was kind of dull. We’d recommend just sticking with the trilogy of original Omen movies.
Spoilery Synopsis
Some workmen raise a stained glass window with a winch as the priest walks by. The priest then goes to listen to confession, where Father Harris tells another priest, Father Brennan, about a baby that wasn’t conceived normally. We flash over to a woman strapped to a table; the man says the baby should be a teenager by now. Harris gets up and leaves, “I just want it all to be over.” Just at that moment, the stained glass window over them shatters and Father Harris is im-poled with a pole.
Credits roll as we shift to 1971 Rome. Cardinal Lawrence is at the station to pick up Margaret, a new nun about to take her vows. The convent is also an orphanage, and they care for lots of girls. She meets Sister Anjelica, who is weird. She also meets Carlita Scianna, one of the older children, and she gets licked in the face for it.
That night, Margaret is alone in her room and gets a jump scare. Another soon-to-be nun, Luz, comes in from the nightclubs; she’s having some fun before taking her vows. They talk about why they have decided to become nuns.
We get a settling-in montage as Margaret meets everyone and starts doing nun things. It seems like a fun, happy place, except for Carlita, who is always sullen and creepy. That night, she sees some nuns tying Carlita to the bed.
Luz wants Margaret to go to the disco or a bar, and Margaret admits she’s never been to one, ever. They immediately meet Alfonso and Paolo. She has a few drinks, a few dances, and wakes up in her bed at the monastery. Luz says that Margaret had a very good time.
Later in the morning, Margaret prays as Father Brennan, from the opening scene watches from afar. He warns her about Carlita, “evil things” happen around her. He wants to talk again tonight. Margaret goes back to the convent to watch a woman give birth forcibly. A long claw comes out of the mother, and Margaret faints at the sight.
Sister Anjelica talks to Carlita and then goes up to the top floor of the orphanage. She comes out giggling as all the children watch. “It’s all for you,” she whispers, looking at Carlita, and then she sets fire to herself, jumps off the ledge, and hangs herself on the way down.
Margaret goes to see Brennan as planned. She tells him what happened with Anjelica. He talks about there being “two churches,” the one for God and the other for secularism. The good church is losing power to people who are more and more becoming unbelievers, so they have a small group who have decided to give people a reason to fear, so church attendance will improve. They plan to give birth to the Antichrist, to cause fear, and the fear will turn people to the church. She believes that Carlita is intended to be the mother of the Antichrist. Margaret gets scared and leaves.
Margaret and a bunch of the orphans go to town, and while they are there, a riot breaks out in the street. Margaret gets a scare that might all be in her own head. Sister Silva, the head nun, wonders at Margaret’s mental health. Maybe it’s too soon to take her vows. They end up arguing about it, and Silva makes the decision final. “Stay away from Carlita, or there will be consequences.”
She goes to town and runs into Paolo, who apologizes for something right before a truck runs into him, cutting him in half.
The time comes, and Luz takes her vows, but Margaret sits in the audience. Margaret sneaks out and goes to the office to find Carlita’s file. She finds a secret passageway to a dungeon where the files are located. She learns that Carlita was the fourteenth in a whole string of deformed babies in the church’s attempt to birth the Antichrist. All the others died as deformed babies.
She goes right upstairs, files in hand, and grabs Carlita, who does indeed have 666 in the roof of her mouth. The priests and nuns grab Margaret and lock her in the “bad room.” While in there, she has several visions or hallucinations.
Father Gabriel lets her out of the room and takes her and the files to Brennan. The three of them look through many files of deformed children. They find a photo of another experiment, healthy but this one has no photo. “There was another survivor, a sister.” Margaret just happens to remember having 666 on her scalp.
Margaret remembers that night at the nightclub when she blacked out. She was impregnated by the devil. Gabriel and Brennan soon figure this out as well. Carlita was too young, so the church brought Margaret back to… what? This is June 6th, at midnight, they’ll be coming for her. “I need it out of me now.”
Brennan puts Margaret in a car and drives to an abortion clinic. Margaret starts feeling sick, and then the car crashes in front of a church. Margaret levitates out of the car and jerky-walks into the church, growling and roaring all the while. We see her belly getting larger as we watch. She passes out.
Cardinal Lawrence explains it all, and it’s pretty much what Brennan suspected. The church itself made the Antichrist just to stir up trouble.
The nuns tie her to a table, and the doctor starts cutting as all the old nuns watch. She gives birth to a big blob. The doctor then cuts open the blob, and inside are the babies; twins. Margaret asks to hold the baby, but she has her eye on the plate of scalpels. She stabs Lawrence, not the baby. Then she starts moving the scalpel toward the baby and she ends up getting stabbed… by Luz, who’s on their side now.
Sister Silva gives orders to burn everything, leaving Margaret and the girl baby to burn. Margaret picks up the girl baby and then Carlita comes in and pulls her out.
We cut to a priest and Luz in a car talking about the US Ambassador’s wife, who is about to lose her child in birth. They plan to offer him the boy child as a trade…
Some time has passed, and Carlita, Margaret, and the baby are happy. Father Brennan comes to warn them that “they know you’re alive. None of you were supposed to survive, especially the girl. They will come for you. They’ve even given it a name, your son… Damien.”
Commentary
The very first scene, with the priest impaled by a pole was ripped right from the first movie, which seemed really lazy. Then the crazy nun jumps from the roof with a noose around her neck. Really? This is supposed to be a prequel, not a requel. Does the devil only know four ways to kill people?
It’s an OK story, but the very limited deaths were all ripped right from the original “The Omen” film. Except… Damien’s mother was literally a jackal, not a woman.
Yeah, it’s not only dull, it wants to add new stuff, like Damien’s heretofore unknown sister. Not good. Not good at all.