Instead of building up gradually, the ending of The First Omen goes straight into horrifying territory without losing its chilling grip. Once Sister Margaret (played by Nell Tiger Free), a young nun-in-training, finds out that she is the child of a human and a jackal, she also discovers she’s pregnant.
The religious order she trusted all her life, led by the warm but deceptive Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy), raised her with a hidden motive. They plan to have her bear the Antichrist, conceived not out of love but from a terrifying ritual involving the jackal creature.
The Church hides secrets darker than any demon (Photo: The First Omen/20th Century Studios)Things take a shocking turn when, instead of just one child, Margaret delivers twins—a girl and a boy. The Church sect considers the boy as the one who must carry out their dark mission. They plan to use him to usher in a terrifying new period where fear forces people to return to religion.
So when Margaret tries to kill the boy, and not before slitting Cardinal Lawrence’s throat in revenge, their entire focus becomes saving the male child. After this, Sister Luz (Maria Caballero), someone Margaret believed she could trust, stabs her in the stomach.
The boy survives and is handed over to an American diplomat named Robert Thorn (portrayed in the original 1976 film by Gregory Peck), who is going through his difficult moment. As for Margaret, her daughter, and the jackal itself, they are all set on fire by those who want to erase all evidence.
But Margaret and her daughter don’t die. Carlita (Nicole Sorace), another child of the jackal and Margaret’s half-sister, comes to their rescue. Some years later, the three of them—Margaret, Carlita, and the young girl—are living quietly in hiding.
That peace is disrupted when Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson) finds them and warns that the cult has not forgotten them. He also tells her the boy, now known as Damien, is still alive.
A Jackal That Changes Shape
While the above breakdown gives the basic structure of how the story ends, it may still confuse those who either haven’t seen the original film or only remember parts of it. In the 1976 movie, Robert Thorn is the central character.
He is told by priests that his newborn son died during childbirth. To spare his wife the pain, they convince him to adopt another baby born at the same time. This child is Damien. As events progress in the original film, Robert returns to Italy and digs up the supposed grave of Damien’s biological mother.
What he finds shocks him—his real child’s skull had been crushed, and lying in the same grave is the skeleton of a jackal. This discovery makes it clear that Damien came from a female jackal and a demonic entity. Now, The First Omen turns that entire setup on its head.
Instead of a female jackal giving birth to Damien, it is now Margaret who becomes his unwilling mother. She was drugged and used in a disturbing ritual, similar to a scene in Rosemary’s Baby (1968). The jackal here is no longer just an animal but takes on a partly human shape, especially during the fiery climax of the film.
When director Arkasha Stevenson spoke to Den of Geek, she talked about why they made this adjustment. She said they wanted to keep the evil presence of the jackal intact, but also dig into how horrifying the birth of Damien had to be.
The jackal is now imagined as a male figure who violates a woman’s body, adding a layer of incest and assault to the story. According to Stevenson, this was deliberate—to portray the birth of the Antichrist as one rooted in the most horrific and unnatural conditions.
A More Sinister Church and Conspiracies within Conspiracies
Turning the jackal into Damien’s father, and disturbingly, his grandfather as well, is one of the many disturbing turns in the film’s updated lore. But something even more shocking is how this new movie presents the Church.
In the original film, there were whispers that Satanists had secretly placed themselves into key positions across different sectors, including within the Church. However, The First Omen goes further by showing a part of the Catholic Church as actively involved in the rise of the Antichrist.
One birth, two destinies, zero mercy (Photo: The First Omen/20th Century Studios)Father Brennan, this time played by Ralph Ineson, breaks it down for Margaret. He explains that within the Church, there are two sides. There’s the faithful side, and then there’s the side so afraid of religion dying out that they think the best way to revive it is to unleash evil so terrifying that people run back to God.
They might even want to trigger the end of days so that Christ will return, like the Book of Revelation describes. This understanding changes how we view Father Spiletto (played in 1976 by Martin Benson and in 2024 by Anton Alexander).
In the older film, he comes off as a secret Satanist helping bring evil into Robert Thorn’s home. In The First Omen, he is shown as a true member of the Catholic Church who is carrying out a grand plan to raise the Antichrist for their gain.
This detail gives his silent regret years later, when Robert finds him disfigured by fire, a much deeper meaning. Another detail that might not be noticed at first glance is the role of Sister Silva (Sonia Braga). This elderly nun, who removes her wimple to show her long grey hair, turns out to be Margaret’s mother.
A flashback reveals she willingly participated in the ritual involving the jackal. Even at the end, she doesn’t hesitate to send her daughter and granddaughter to be burned in the Church’s basement. Director Stevenson explained that they didn’t mind if audiences didn’t catch that twist immediately, but it was part of the story from the start.
A Larger Omen Universe
If the events of all three original Omen films are to be accepted as part of the same timeline, then Damien’s journey already has a destination. He eventually wipes out anyone trying to stop his rise, but at the final moment, Christ returns and ends his reign.
But The First Omen shows that another child was born—Damien’s twin sister. This girl is also a product of that twisted ritual, and Margaret is raising her in secrecy with help from Carlita. The film hints that Margaret might raise her differently, without the evil influence that shaped Damien.
But then again, the Thorns also tried to raise Damien with care and still met destruction. So, is there another dark story waiting in the wings? Possibly. Director Stevenson says her mind keeps returning to unanswered questions about the jackal and Sister Silva.
She’s curious about how the jackal was found, and what kind of woman would willingly take part in such a ritual. According to her, those questions could lead to new, disturbing parts of this story that haven’t been shown yet.
