The Curse: The Origin, successful summon (critical)

In the prequel-vintage genre of a 70s horror classic, an effective first feature film and stronger than a simple mass-produced product.

Nothing supernatural in the arrival of a prequel to The curse in the cinema landscape of the 2020s. If the franchise had already experienced a lazy remake manufactured by John Moore in 2006, The First Omen does not stand out within a horror landscape dominated by the A24 aesthetic and deploys the imagery of Exorcism-porn with application: evil nuns, noises in Latin and plotting priests in Italy in the 70s (just a framework temporal like any other). A young novice (amazing Nell Tiger Free, revealed by the series Servant) arrives in Rome to pronounce his vows, joins a boarding school haunted by a young woman who scribbles unhealthy drawings, and, my goodness, you pretty much know how it will all end. It is sometimes very effective but often predictable, without exploiting the more troubled moments that director Arkasha Stevenson captures (for example the heroine's sudden attraction to her roommate), for whom this is the first film.

Nevertheless, something stronger than usual runs through the footage, in a way that is both underground and exposed: the introduction, a little cheesy (a priest confesses while revealing the stakes of the scenario before dying in a ” graphic”, as they say), is thus infected by the flashback of the rape of a woman by Satan. Deliberately traumatic images – the film is prohibited for those under 16, and it is deserved – which will return at the end (to the sound of the glorious “Ave Satani” by Jerry Goldsmith, the Imperial March of The curse from 1978), closing the circle of a film revolving around violence against women by men. That said, making the film a pro-life or pro-choice political banner would be very exaggerated, in one sense or the other, since The First Omen also cultivates a certain ironic distance from his own identity. Should Beelzebub's son be aborted? The film has the merit of not seriously asking this absurd question. Good for him, and salute to Satan.