The First Omen

A prequel nobody asked for that turned out to be the best-directed studio horror of its year.

A young American novice arrives in Rome in 1971 to take vows at an orphanage. The church, losing its grip on a secularising world, has concluded that what it needs is a devil to frighten people back.

Arkasha Stevenson shoots it on film with a 1970s grammar that is not pastiche: real zooms, real grain, and a genuine willingness to hold on a face.

The corridor birth sequence is extraordinary and reportedly required a fight with the ratings board.

Nell Tiger Free gives a performance of real physical commitment, and the film's actual subject, an institution deciding what a woman's body is for, is handled with a clarity the original never attempted.