The First Omen death count: Who dies (and how) in The Omen prequel

Warning: Major spoilers ahead for The First Omen

A movie like The First Omen was expected to have quite the body count. After all, the average Omen movie has around 10 death scenes, which are often the most memorable parts of the films. While The First Omen is a very different kind of horror movie than its predecessors, it did still give audiences plenty of blood and gore.

Most of the death scenes are relatively easy to predict, but they are most notable in how they connect to the rest of the series. In The First Omen, nearly every death scene functions as an homage to a death scene in another part of the franchise. While some of these are obvious, others are fairly obscure.

Below, we break down every character who died, how their death happened, and which death(s) it references from the previous films. In some cases, this seemed to be a matter of fan service. In others, it potentially adds depth to what each death in The First Omen actually meant.

All the deaths in The First Omen

Father Harris

The film opens with Father Brennan talking to another priest named Father Harris (Charles Dance), who informs him about a girl who was born in unnatural ways, and who is intended to be the mother of the Antichrist. Harris ends up going outside, where a construction accident causes a pipe to crash through a stained glass window and rain down glass and other debris upon them. Although he originally appears to be fine, it is revealed that the pipe did hit him, slicing through the back of his head.

This scene refers back to Father Brennan's death in The Omen, where he was impaled by a lightning rod just outside the church. In both cases, the killer appears to be the Devil himself, orchestrating accidents to eliminate those with too much knowledge of the Antichrist.

Sister Anjelika

Shortly after Margaret arrives at the orphanage, she is warned that bad things will happen around Carlita. After talking with the girl, one of the nuns named Sister Anjelika (Ishtar Currie-Wilson) leaves the courtyard, reappearing at the top of the building. She has doused herself in gasoline and made a noose, proclaiming to the courtyard "It's all for you." Then, she lights herself on fire and jumps, her body crashing through a window.

This is the most obvious reference in the movie, mirroring Damien's nanny's suicide in the original film. Holly said the same phrase before hanging herself and crashing through a window at Damien's birthday party. In both films, there is an understanding that the women are being possessed or compelled by a dark force. The fire is a unique element, but it could also refer back to the death by fire (while hanging) of Brother Benito in Omen III: The Final Conflict.

Paolo

As the world gets increasingly terrifying, Margaret seeks out Paolo (Andrea Arcangeli), a man she had flirted with during a night out on the town. He runs from her, telling her that he "didn't know," and advising her to look for the mark. As Margaret tries to get more coherent information from him, he steps back into the street and is hit by a truck.

While that could be fatal in its own right, he is shown to have survived it, crushed between the truck and a wall. When Margaret tries to help him, she ends up accidentally severing the top half of his body from the bottom.

This death scene seems to combine three from Damien: The Omen II. Joan Hart was hit by a truck after being attacked by a crow. Dr. Charles Warren was crushed between railroad cars. Finally, Dr. Kane was bisected by an elevator cable after a seemingly miraculous survival.

This could also be the movie's only direct homage to the 2016 Damien TV series. In the second episode, Hermon Soroyan attempts to kill Damien, only to be hit by a car and seemingly cut in half.

Whether referencing the trio of deaths in the second film or the one from the television series, this is clearly a death meant to reference and expand upon previous incidents. In each case, they were gruesome 'accidents' that befell those who knew too much about Damien, which translates well to Paolo's circumstances.

Scianna babies

It's horrifying enough that the Church conspired to create the Antichrist once, but it took a lot of trial and error for them to get there. Like in Immaculate, there were many children that did not survive, dying either as fetuses or just after birth. The film shows the files of twelve babies that died from horrific birth defects.

This is one of the harder deaths to compare to the rest of the franchise, because while the films have killed a lot of babies, it was always through deliberate infanticide. In The Omen, the Thorns' first biological child had its skull crushed shortly after birth. Similarly, Omen III: The Final Conflict features the murder of 32 babies born on March 24, 1981. Perhaps this is intended to show that the infant deaths in The First Omen, even though not intentional, are the direct consequence of the Church's actions.

Luca and Father Gabriel (Implied)

Once Margaret knows the truth, she races off to get an abortion. Along with her are Father Brennan, her driver Luca (Michelangelo Dalisi), and sympathetic priest Father Gabriel (Tawfeek Barhom). However, they are hit by a car on their way, which seems to kill Luca and Father Gabriel, who were in the front seats. Both are slumped forward with blood on the windshield, and neither is seen again.

This uncertain of a death is actually quite unusual in The Omen franchise, but it may be in part because the men were killed by the Church, not by Satanic forces causing accidents. The Church leaders were trying to capture Margaret, so whether the others in the car died or not was probably the least of their concerns.

The best parallel to these deaths in the franchise comes from the 2006 remake. While Robert races to kill Damien, he has to confront Mrs. Baylock. He eventually ends up hitting her with his car, which is implied to have killed her (but is never confirmed). It's the kind of accident that could be survivable, but whether or not she did doesn't really matter. Robert is just trying to get Damien to the church without interference, just as Sister Silva and Cardinal Lawrence are trying to get Margaret in the right place to give birth.

Cardinal Lawrence

After giving birth, there is a moment where Margaret seems on a precipice. Will she end up loving and supporting Damien? Will she kill him? Rather than committing to either, Margaret ends up stabbing Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy) in the neck with a scalpel, directing her rage at the person who betrayed and violated her most.

In every entry of The Omen franchise (excluding the remake), there has been a major stabbing in the film's climax, so this kind of death scene is the franchise's bread and butter. The First Omen seems to be directly paralleling two of them, from the first and fourth movies. In The Omen, Robert ends up in a wild fight with Mrs. Baylock, who he eventually dispatches with a carving fork to the neck. Similarly, Omen IV: The Awakening sees Karen York stabbing Dr. Hastings with a scalpel.

In both of these examples, the protagonist stabs a trusted figure after learning about their betrayal. This lines up perfectly with Margaret stabbing Cardinal Lawrence. Though the protagonist always ends up losing, all three death scenes provide them with a chance to take back some control over their lives.

Interestingly, the aftermath of this death mirrors the climactic stabbings from the second and third films. Luz stabs Margaret to get Damien back and make sure she can't fight back again. In Damien: The Omen II, Richard Thorn is stabbed by his wife. In Omen III: The Final Conflict, Damien uses Peter Reynolds as a human shield, with the teenager taking a stabbing intended for him. These stabbings mark major, personal betrayals that showcase the cost of fighting against the Antichrist.

The Jackal

After the members of the Church get Damien back from Margaret, they order that the building be burned down, with Margaret and her female baby inside. While the girls get out, the jackal itself does not. It bursts out from its hiding spot but ends up catching on fire. This is, presumably, the jackal skeleton from the first film.

In the first movie, it's mentioned that the hospital where the Thorns' baby died burned down, along with most of its staff. This is the clearest parallel to the jackal's death scene, as it shows both that the Church is covering its tracks and that they don't care who or what dies in the process. Similar to Luca and Father Gabriel, these deaths are perpetrated by the Church, and they are far less effective methods than those used by the general evil force behind most of the franchise's deaths.

All in all, there are seven deaths depicted on-screen, with another twelve referenced through the Scianna babies. This is on-par with The Omen's original seven deaths, although the addition of the infants makes it the franchise's second most-deadly entry, behind Omen III: The Final Conflict's 42 deaths.

Audiences and reviewers seem divided on whether the deaths make or break the effectiveness of The First Omen. Either way, it's clear that the team behind the prequel did their homework, tying every new death to one that came before it.