The First Omen is offiically playing in theaters, and the new horror film takes place before the events of The Omen (1976). The movie was directed by Arkasha Stevenson (Brand New Cherry Flavor) and stars Nell Tiger Free (Servant) as Margaret, a young American woman who is sent to Rome to begin a life of service to the church. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with both Stevenson and Free, and they both spoke about their love for the original film. We also brought up some of the movie’s goriest moments, and they talked about how things went down behind the scenes. Warning: Spoilers Ahead! One of the freakiest moments in the movie is when Margaret watches a woman give birth, and a gruesome hand comes out instead of a baby.
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“That was fully practical,” Stevenson revealed. “That was a piece by Adrien Morot and Kathy [Tse], and that’s Kathy’s hand, our makeup effects artist coming out. She has this beautiful, delicate hand to press through, and what I love about their work is how detailed it is. And if you look closely, you can see little bits of cellulite and skin and hair pores. And so you look at the image and a lot of their work, you’d walk on set and you’d be like, ‘Oh, that man has no legs. Oh, that’s a piece.’ You start losing your grip on reality with them.”
ComicBook.com recently moderated a Q&A with Stevenson and her co-writer, Tim Smith, and they revealed they encountered some trouble with that scene with it came to the MPAA. They almost got an NC-17 rating, and the scene ultimately had to be cut down from 30 seconds to 13 seconds to three seconds.
As for Free, the lead of the movie enjoyed getting gory for the film, and spoke about having to hold the torso of a severed body.
“So when I’m holding that, the top half of him, that was an interesting moment for sure,” Fere shared. “Also, I guess in the finale, in the last kind of moments, I am covered in blood, and I was covered in blood for four days shooting that, cause it took a long time. But also we were on sand and I was lying on sand, so I had sand and blood and mud and just, I was in tatters. I really wasn’t. They added sweat to me. So everything sticks to you. And then there’s fire. So there’s real sweat in the mix. I stunk.”
You can wtach our interviews with Stevenson and Free at the top of the page. The First Omen is now playing in theaters.
