The First Omen Repeats A 9-Year-Old Horror Movie's Great Casting Trick

Summary The First Omen repeats a major casting trick by featuring Ralph Ineson.

Ineson previously played a similar character in 2015's The Witch.

While The Witch's Ineson role is scarier, both movies offer compelling performances from the actor.

The First Omen has utilized a casting trick that helped a nine-year-old horror movie excel. A prequel to the 1976 classic The Omen, the movie was directed by Arkasha Stevenson and features a cast that includes Servant's Nell Tiger Free, Kiss of the Spider Woman's Sônia Braga, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales' Bill Nighy. The movie took in $53.7 million at the global box office, becoming the third highest-grossing horror movie of the year so far behind Exhuma ($97 million) and Night Swim ($54 million).

This may not have been enough for the First Omen release to break even theatrically, given its $30 million budget. However, it was well-received on Rotten Tomatoes by both critics (who gave it a Certified Fresh 81% score) and audiences (who gave it 70%). This positive reception may be in part because of the way that the movie both deploys and subverts horror tropes, including the fact that it utilizes a major casting trick involving one member of its ensemble of character actors.

Related When Is The First Omen Set? (How Long Before The Omen 1976 Does It Take Place) The First Omen serves as a prequel to the popular 1976 supernatural horror movie The Omen – so, in what year does the upcoming film take place?

The First Omen Repeats The Witch's Ralph Ineson Casting

Ineson Played Similar Characters In Both Horror Movies

Your browser does not support the video tag.

One explanation for the overwhelmingly positive The First Omen reviews could be the fact that the cast includes The Witch star Ralph Ineson. Ineson is a consummate character actor who has appeared in quite a few prominent titles including the original UK The Office, Game of Thrones, and the later Harry Potter movies. One of his best-known roles is William from 2015's The Witch, a religious zealot who rules his family (which includes a young Anya Taylor-Joy) with an iron fist.

Notable Ralph Ineson Roles Title Character The Office (2001-2003) Chris "Finchy" Finch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) Amycus Carrow Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) Amycus Carrow Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) Amycus Carrow Game of Thrones (2012) Dagmer Cleftjaw The Witch (2015) William Peaky Blinders (2016) Connor Nutley Chernobyl (2019) General Tarakanov The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (2019) The Hunter Brahms: The Boy II (2020) Joseph The Green Knight (2021) Green Knight The Northman (2022) Captain Volodymyr

In The First Omen, Ineson is asked to play a similar role. His character, Father Brennan, is a zealot of a different stripe who is one of the only people in the Church to believe that there is a conspiracy going on to support the birth of the Antichrist. The actor's intensity and iconic gravelly voice make his iteration of Father Brennan (a character who appeared in the original Omen as played by Patrick Troughton) a compelling but potentially dangerous figure.

Is Ralph Ineson Scarier In The Witch Or The First Omen?

One Movie Utilizies Ineson's Gravity For Better Results

Close

Ultimately, Ineson's character in The First Omen is less scary than his character in The Witch. William is a genuinely threatening presence whose desire to control the behavior of his family leads his daughter to embrace becoming a witch in a believable break from the strict adherence to tradition that he enforces. On the other hand, Father Brennan ultimately proves to be a hero in the newer movie, though Ineson's previous horror role informs the way that Free's character Margaret is initially unsure about whether she should trust him.