The First Omen and Monkey Man Fight Dirty 

THE FIRST OMEN. With the recent spate of horror movies centered around nuns — from the Conjuring universe's spinoff and 2023 sequel, Immaculate's robes only lately sweeping out of the theater and now The First Omen opening — one wonders how recruitment is going.

The Omen (1976), stars a fully gray Gregory Peck as a diplomat who furrows his brow as he gaslights his wife (Lee Remick) to the edge of sanity, secretly swapping her stillborn baby for another one, who turns out to be the Antichrist. Re-watching is a far more camp experience than in my childhood, when mention of the name Damien gave us all chills. Even with its dated effects, it's still up there in the canon of terrifying children and gaslit mothers. (If ever a horror classic was ready for a reboot helmed by a feminist director, it's Rosemary's Baby, directed in 1968 by Roman Polanski, who's since managed greater creepiness than the film itself.)

With The First Omen, director Arkasha Stevenson, who also shares writing credit, gives us a prequel that calls back to the vintage aesthetics and imagery of the original, while dovetailing with its plot and lore. She also expands upon and makes visceral some themes from The Omen, including birth, gaslighting, dark conspiracies and female sexuality. Brace yourself for some monstrous scenes of birth and rape.

In 1971, defrocked Catholic priest Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson) receives a photograph — a clue in his hunt for a young woman he believes is at the center of a deep-church conspiracy, when his priest contact suffers a grisly accident. Brennan follows the clue to Rome, where, amid a strike and the steady decline of the church's influence, novice Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) has been invited by her mentor (Bill Nighy) to work in a girls' orphanage run by sisters who also run a maternity ward for unwed mothers. Margaret, who has a history of frightening visions, comes out of her shell a bit, hitting a disco with her new roomie Luz (Maria Caballero), who's having a last hurrah before taking the veil. Brennan tries to recruit Margaret to help him investigate a child he suspects is being groomed to bear the spawn of Satan, but it's not until things get weirder at the orphanage that she starts to have suspicions of her own.

Stevenson's devotion to the style, if not the slow pacing, of the original movie leads to some wonderfully framed shots, from archways to candles that form rows of teeth, Medusa imagery and retro overlays of spiders. The music and dizzying aerial footage are nostalgic, too. And the cast, including a stone-faced Sonia Braga as a nun who casually surmises, "Some girls are bad," is strong enough to engage us between scares and discoveries. There are twists, jump scares and gradually building terror, wild imaginings, too, mostly built upon the mental and physical horrors already visited upon women. R. 120M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

MONKEY MAN. Early in Dev Patel's Monkey Man, which he co-wrote, stars in and makes his feature directorial debut, a man selling black market guns offers a semi-automatic handgun, asking, "You like John Wick?" It's both a hat tip and a wink at the inevitable comparison. (We are truly living in a Golden Age of dapper Asian men bent on revenge and fighting their way through armies of henchmen.) And yet, despite the sharp cut of Patel's suit, it is not an imitation. The characters inhabit the real, un-stylized world of India's poorest and most powerful, with all its grit and greed. It is, of course, intensely violent by even action movie standards, but it's also a story about a man finding a mission beyond his own rage, even if it's only to be achieved with his fists.

As a child, our nameless protagonist the Kid (Patel) lives in a forest village with his mother, who tells him tales of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey deity. In fragmented flashbacks, we learn this idyllic life and his mother were destroyed in a land grab facilitated by crooked police led by the sinister Rana Singh (Sikandar Kher) in service to celebrity guru/political kingmaker Baba Shakti (Makrand Deshpande, somehow making yoga look evil). Years later, both remain in power, backing reactionary politicians whose rhetoric fuels attacks on religious minorities, the poor and transgender people, among others. The Kid, meanwhile, is living in a slum, scraping by fighting in fixed bouts as the masked Monkey Man. When he finally infiltrates the exclusive club where Rana parties, a botched assassination attempt lands him half dead in a river, from which he's rescued by the transgender and intersex (Hijra) residents of a temple of Ardhanarishvara, a male and female deity. There he revisits his traumatic past with the help of Alpha (Vipin Sharma) and some macro-dosing, coming to with renewed purpose. Cue hand drum-backed training montage.

Patel creates a visual contrast between the bright colors of the club, the dusty fight club and dark streets where the poor reside, and the alabaster walls of the truly powerful. Brahim Chab's fight choreography is scrappy and fast, down and dirty, as engrossing in an elevator as in the ring, and a bloody-handed Patel makes the most of every swing and dodge. (The Kid is a biter.) Patel's charisma (and hair) might have carried the picture, but Sharma's excellent performance gives voice to the Kid's internal struggle and his connection to a broader one. There are touches of Bollywood aesthetics in the swirl of spangled skirts mid-fight, it delivers a more exciting tuk-tuk chase than one might anticipate and the Diwali showdown is a banger. That Monkey Man is exciting and visually stunning is enough to recommend it, but it also has heart and compassion, and its catharsis is as much the product of love as vengeance. R. 121M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK, MINOR.

Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 320, or [email protected]. Follow her on Instagram @JFumikoCahill.

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Fortuna Theatre is temporarily closed. For showtimes call: Broadway Cinema (707) 443-3456; Mill Creek Cinema 839-3456; Minor Theatre (707) 822-3456.