The First Omen ending explained

Even though The First Omen is a prequel, the horror movie’s ending is still full of surprises – here’s a breakdown of what happens.

We’re not short of horror movies this year, but one that’s definitely worth adding to your watchlist is The First Omen. As we said in our four-star review, it’s a “striking, thought-provoking, and, at times, truly petrifying prequel that may just be the best horror movie of 2024 so far.”

Coming before the 1976 horror classic, the film – directed by Arkasha Stevenson and starring Nell Tiger Free as a nun-to-be – will answer all of your Omen questions (although not in the way you might expect). 

With The First Omen out in cinemas now, we’ve broken down the ending, including the truth about Damien’s biological mother. Warning: Major spoilers ahead!

The First Omen ending explained

The ending of The First Omen sees Carlita (Nicole Sorace) and Margaret (Free) – Damien’s suspected birth mother and his actual mother – living in the mountains with the Antichrist’s twin sister. They get an unexpected visitor in the form of Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson), who warns that the church will come for them and reveals they’ve named Margaret’s son (aka the Antichrist) Damien. 

We already knew that the timeline of The First Omen places it right before the events of the original movie, which kicks off with Robert Thorn being convinced by Father Spiletto to secretly adopt Damien after he and his wife’s baby dies in labor. 

Up until this very moment, it’s been widely believed that Damien’s biological mother is a jackal. It’s a reasonable conclusion, given The Omen shows Robert and photographer Keith Jennings discovering a jackal carcass in the grave of the Antichrist’s mom. 

However, The First Omen rewrites the script and makes the jackal beast the father. But before we elaborate on Damien’s biological parents, let’s first look into why the Antichrist was created. 

As explained by Brennan, at the time (the film is set in 1971) people were moving away from the Catholic church in droves. “You know, as well as I, that belief is power,” he says. “Now, how do you control people who know longer believe in your stories of fire and brimstone?… you create something to fear.”

Brennan goes on to explain that there’s a group of higher-ups in the church who have decided to take drastic action to maintain their power: birth the Antichrist and control him, wreaking just enough havoc to drive society back to the church. 

Margaret – who has arrived at the Vizzardeli Orphanage in Rome to take the veil – is skeptical, but Brennan continues. He reveals that he was excommunicated and only has one photo to go off, showing two nuns and a priest holding a baby. 

He believes the baby is to be the biological mother of the Antichrist, explaining that she’ll eventually be made to mate with the jackal beast. He suspects it could be Carlita – a teenager at the orphanage who Margaret has grown close to. If she is the one, she will have been born “on the 6th day, in the 6th month, at 6am.”

But confirming this theory is no mean feat – Margaret will need to obtain files about Operation Antichrist hidden in the basement of the orphanage. And it’s risky business as the church will stop at nothing to keep their secret under wraps. 

Although Margaret initially doesn’t buy it, when eerie goings-on start to unfold and she sees a 666 symbol in the roof of Carlita’s mouth, she realizes Brennan is telling the truth. 

After obtaining the files, they discover the experiment has only birthed females prior to this, and they all died after childbirth – except for Carlita. But the Antichrist needs to be male, with Brennan stating, “They believe the only way is for the beast to mate with its own offspring.”

And if that weren’t enough, they notice something odd about the baby in the original photo: she has the mark of the beast on her head, not inside her mouth. They start routing through the files, trying to find the real chosen one. 

They discover there was one other survivor from the first phase of their plan: Margaret. She’s understandably shocked, realizing she’s been lured to Rome by her former mentor, Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy), to give birth to the Antichrist. 

Earlier on in The First Omen, Margaret had been taken on a night out by her roommate and fellow nun-to-be Luz (Maria Caballero), seemingly drinking so much that she’d blacked out. Turns out, she’d been drugged and, while out of it, was inseminated by the beast.

Although Margaret wants to get rid of the baby, it’s too late and she goes into labor before waking up to find the orphanage clergy have captured her. She’s tied to a table and gives birth to twins: a boy and a girl.

Margaret nearly gets away after stabbing Lawrence and threatening to kill the son, but she hesitates, giving Luz a window to stab her. The church members take the boy while setting the orphanage on fire in a bid to eliminate any evidence of what they’ve done. 

It seems as if Margaret’s going to die in the blaze, but at the last minute, Carlita comes to save her and they run away with the baby girl. And this brings us to the very final scene, where they are living a relatively peaceful life in the mountains, far away from what happened. 

But their peace is disrupted when Brennan shows up. Margaret holds a gun towards him, telling him to leave. “I came to warn you,” he insists. “They know you’re alive. You weren’t supposed to survive. None of you were.”

He goes on to say that “they will come for you,” before letting Margaret know that they have his son and they named him Damien. This is exactly where The First Omen ends, and while we don’t know whether the church did manage to kill Margaret and Carlita, it seems likely given the events of the other Omen films. Or, we might just see a sequel involving Damien’s twin sister… time will tell.

The First Omen is in cinemas now. For more movies, check out all the new releases coming to streaming this month. And you can find our rundown of the 30 best horror movies of all time here.