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johannestevans · 9 days

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The Devouring Gaze in The First Omen

The horror of surveillance and surveilling in Arkasha Stevenson’s The First Omen (2024).

Cap via ScreenAnarchy.

I was saying the other night after we came out of the cinema that for the past few years, it really feels like I can trust horror films more than virtually any other film — horror films generally have a specific, presumed audience of older teens and adults who know what they’re in for, and subsequently, they don’t always fall in the same trap of overproduction that other films fall prey to.

When I watch a lot of new horror releases, even though they are as much part of unnecessary franchising as a lot of other films, I tend to be able to trust that they’ll be a bit more original, a bit more flexible, a bit more intelligent in their use of lighting —

And but for a few flaws in the aforementioned franchise connection, The First Omen is a gorgeous exploration of all the mindbending and nastiness the horror genre has to offer.

This is hardly the first horror film to bring a young novitiate to Rome as the core of its initial premise — this sort of foreign transplant of an American to a much more religious, much more “classical” feeling European nation, particularly the centre of the Catholic Church outside of the Vatican, is a staple of the genre.

Why is it that a young, new nun makes such a perfect protagonist in a horror film like this?

She’s youthful, naive — sheltered. Her desire to be cloistered in part comes from the fact that she has been raised by and with the church for the whole of her life, and now an adult, she wishes to continue in that vein forever more.

She represents the power of the Catholic church to passersby, veiled and wearing vestments, even as a novice without being fully pledged and committed — she covers her hair to show her commitment to God and to Christ, she covers her body, and yet while she wears this uniform, while she serves as a symbol of the Church and its power, she is not yet privy to its secrets, or the information known to pledged members of the order, the sisters more superior to her, let alone the priests and other clergy.

Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) has one foot in this new world, and at the same time, it is a world that she’s always been a part of — part of the reason that Luz (Maria Caballero) invites her out to the disco is ostensibly to give her a taste of the real world, having only existed within the church’s bounds and its confines. Margaret has been in this world her whole life and has known that some information was kept from her. She knows that she’s sheltered, and yet the extent to which she’s truly ignorant not only of the wider world but also of the church evades her.

What does it mean for a nun to take the veil?

The veil on a nun’s hair is a reminder of her submission to Jesus Christ — a reminder to herself, a uniform she wears to be ever-reminded of the commitment she has made, and at the same time, it is a sign of her consecration, an indication to anyone about her that she has been set aside in service to Christ and the church, that she is not available as a wife or a sexual partner: she is a bride of Christ.

To take vows as a nun for some women is a way to avoid the weight of men’s gazes on her body, on her hair, on any part of her but her face — she is made to some extent invisible, a small part of a larger body, blending in with the black and white camouflage of the other women around her. Her identity is no longer her own but sublimated by the larger whole, and the only outward indication should be one thing — her submission to Christ — or the other — the authority she wields on behalf of the church.

So much of the First Omen is about Margaret’s fear of being seen, of being observed, of being looked at. In one scene after another, we are aware of her on her own, the only subject of the viewers’ gaze on the screen, locked alone in a room, or in a bed positioned in the room’s very centre; she is paranoid at times, looking over and over her shoulder for an observer she doesn’t catch or find, and occasionally finding an unexpected one, another young woman, another novitiate; when she is strapped down to be victimised by the bestial jackal kept in the church’s cellars, when she is strapped down once again to give birth, she is observed by dozens of veiled spectators.

These veils, I would point out, are quite different to those ordinarily worn by the nuns and worn by men and women alike — resembling black funeral veils, the veils over their heads in the cellar, when Margaret is impregnated and then when she is giving birth more resemble, in my mind, those veils worn by those feasting on ortolan, where the head covering is worn to shield them from the watchful and judgemental eyes of God, for taking part in so disgraceful an act. They wish to gaze upon their act of sacrilege, in their belief to be necessary to draw people back into the church’s fold, but not to be gazed upon by God, whose gaze is meant to be omnipresent and inescapable.

Margaret does not want to be gazed upon by these foreign parties, and she fears this constant watch she is certain of and frightened of — a gaze which, in retrospect, is clear has always been on her, a continuous surveillance that has plagued her throughout her life, as a successful progeny of Satan.

And yet, like her manipulators veiling themselves whilst wishing to observe, she does want to gaze at herself.

Margaret and Luz go out in sexy dresses designed to make them feel attractive in themselves, to make themselves look beautiful and desirable to others, but they still wear wigs to cover their hair, carrying on some form of their consecration even whilst seemingly going against their vows — and Margaret does not just feel gazes on her, but gazes on those around her. Gazes on Luz, on other women, on men.

Within the convent, we’re frequently aware of Margaret’s gaze as she looks at the other sisters, watches these older and more committed nuns laughing and smoking cigarettes, listens to them cracking jokes as they peel potatoes and chop vegetables, watches a nun bouncing on a trampoline — these are versions of these women that would never be permitted to be seen outside of the convent. Margaret and the children cared for by the nuns are privy to these moments, but not passers-by or random people in the street, those who would see these nuns primarily in moments of gravity and piety, where they would be representing the same gravity of the church itself.

We see Margaret’s horror as she watches Sister Anjelica’s brutal triple-barrelled suicide; we see her frequently stopping to stare at Anjelica and, at the same time, rush to cover Carlita’s eyes and turn her gaze away. In the scene where the pregnant mother is giving birth, Margaret frequently moves between one window and the other whenever her gaze is interrupted, desperate to keep watching.

There is power in a gaze.

Almost every horror film about the Catholic church, particularly ones that involve either young nuns or young children (or, in this case, both), are often in various ways metaphors for child abuse, sexual or otherwise. There is a lot of textual abuse of children within the course of this film, with implications of beatings and flagellation, but most of all in the ways that the girls (Margaret and then Carlita) are forcibly held down by the sisters, isolated, kept apart and lonely.

They live in fear of the power that the sisters around them have over them, and to some extent, fear themselves, feel shame and guilt for the ways in which they act “crazy” when these psychotic symptoms — their hallucinations, their constant flinches, their imagined noises, their paranoia, their sudden and unexpected outbursts — are either rooted in the demonic impact of their birth circumstances or might be brought on by the trauma already inflicted on them.

This abuse of Margaret, of Carlita, of others around them, each abuse is one power or other taking advantage of their more vulnerable position, represented first by gazes upon them and then by acts against their autonomy, beginning with shame, isolation, then acts of violence or restraint, and then graduating to the ritual rape of Margaret by the jackal-like demon, and her unwilling C-section.

Margaret, the whole of her life, has been watched and gazed upon by the church and by its agents — by the nuns who cared for and abused her, by Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy), by these secret watchers intent on using her for her later powers, her potential ability to give birth to the Antichrist.

She fears this gaze, frequently turns away from it, and at the same time, she craves to wield such a gaze herself, to have the knowledge behind it that those around her do. The gaze is representative of a larger issue — the number of gazes upon her at any one time represents the amount of powers over her, the number of those who have designs on her she is not aware of or able to control, the number of invisible hands that might be leading her in one direction or moulding her into one shape over another.

Every eye on her is yet another power she cannot resist, and is powerless to escape — every eye on her is hungry, a devouring gaze that seeks to consume aspects of her, not only the submission she has desire to offer to God, but her personality, her body, its autonomy.

It is no surprise, then, that in the aftermath of the purifying fire and smoke, which hides both her and Carlita from view — from the eyes of those in the church or the eyes of God, who is to say? — she, Carlita, and her new daughter flee to a house in the snowy mountains, isolated together, in the hopes that no one will see or look upon any of them… nonetheless, they are tracked and surveilled and never truly safe from the church’s devouring gaze.

#the first omen #musings #the omen #horror movies #nell tiger free

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void-tiger · 21 days

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…sometimes I just. Think about. How literal siblings get stuck with rumors they’re dating, and m-f friendships often don’t get a chance to truly start or develop because of the strain those assumptions and pressure causes…

…while literal same-gender and aspec-affirming couples get slapped with “like siblings” this and “just really good friends” that.

And then how this gets even more reductive with infighting like “m-f friendships can only occur when one of them is homosexual,” or aspecs picking at eachother over rep until it’s a very specific type of aroace on the aroace spectrum of the aspec spectrums (and nobody’s actually happy), and of course fanon ships pitted against gen-no-ships…

…and how everyone just ends up feeling stressed out and invalidated. Because anything—and I do mean anything—that doesn’t fit neatly inside of the heteronormative narrative of “men and women can’t be friends, men and women must be romantically involved, people of the same gender and/or aspec/any other queer identity(ies) must never date.”

And how it makes the queers and cichets alike absolutely miserable.

#tiger’s musings #…that post about The Gay Birds and conservatives losing their fucking minds #and how many times I’ve had people Just Assume or Consistantly Forget my brother and I are dating…not helped by we look Nothing alike #and just. the utter BULLSHIT I have gone through to guard friendships and the chance to even be friends at all #and often wondering why I’m even doing this…besides the Good Men are often timid and This Problem Will Exist Everywhere #so…either I fight. or I remain isolated.#…but I’m so tired of fighting.#and. nevermind when emotions aren’t so Clearcut. it’s not even worth mentioning when THIS. Friendship AT ALL.#just can’t be allowed to exist. gets scrutinized to death when it finally DOES like a dandelion growing through pavement #but without that resiliency. especially when I get tired of being the one to fight for it #or if the other party ever is…I’m so so weary of them all being silent about it #just. let friendships and queer relationships EXIST already #and let them be ‘complicated’ too

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