Horror Prequel The First Omen Had To Fight Like Hell To Avoid An NC-17 Rating
2024 is shaping up to be a great year to be a horror fan and certified Sicko™ because every day seems to bring a fresh bit of news guaranteed to scare the squares. Michael Mohan and Sydney Sweeney's "Immaculate" is causing a moral panic among conservatives, "Late Night with the Devil" is allegedly bringing in dollar amounts that match the mark of the beast, and it was recently revealed that "The First Omen" had to fight with the Motion Picture Association to earn an R-rating after receiving five separate NC-17 hits. During an interview with Fangoria, director Arkasha Stevenson talked about making the sixth film in "The Omen" franchise and the first prequel film in the series, which included a "long battle" with the MPA over the film's content.
Typically, when horror films are given the NC-17 rating, it's due to extreme violence or gore, but as Fangoria found out, that wasn't the case with "The First Omen." The NC-17 rating, which is often reserved for pornographic films or exploitation cinema, has often been a death note for horror movies. Some theaters don't even screen NC-17 films and with the hard and fast rule that no one under the age of 17 will legally be allowed entry to the film, there's nothing even the most "cool and with-it" parents can do to help their teenagers see the film on the big screen. Getting the film down to an R-rating was vital to the potential success of the film, but the issue with the rating board had nothing to do with blood, guts, or even blasphemy, instead smacking the film with the adult rating for daring to feature the most dangerous and inappropriate thing a filmmaker could ever put on screen — a vagina.
The horrors of human anatomy
Stevenson told Fangoria that "The First Omen" is very much a story of body horror, based in the terrifying reality of forced birthing and a lack of autonomy for women. The director wanted to showcase that this is a situation of power, not sexuality, and therefore wanted to show the body of a cis woman on screen in a completely non-sexual manner to make the point more obvious. "The horror in that situation is how dehumanized that woman is," Stevenson said. She continued by explaining how difficult it has been to justify the scene's existence in the face of people who don't understand her art:
"This has been my life for a year and a half, fighting for the shot. It's the theme of our film. It's the female body being violated from the inside outwards. If we were going to talk about female body horror, we were going to talk about forced reproduction, and we have to be able to show the female body in a non-sexualized light. I'm very proud of this shot."
The MPA has a history of double standards, judging examples of female pleasure and sexuality more harshly than men's, which is something producer David Goyer pointed out as well. "The movie, by its nature, deals with female body horror, and I do think there's a double standard," he told Fangoria. "I think there is more permissiveness when dealing with male protagonists, particularly in body horror. That birthing scene is super intense, I also have three kids and have been at their births. It's intense!"
The First Omen became more intense in the process
This sticking-point scene was always a part of the film, with Stevenson admitting she had some serious worries about pitching it to the male producing team of Keith Levine and David Goyer. "I'm not going to lie, it is pretty nerve-racking pitching that scene, thinking these guys will never go for that," she told Fangoria. "But the whole time, Keith and Goyer were so supportive. I really wanted to work with these guys who aren't scared off by that word. I think it's a huge litmus test if people can say the word 'vagina.'" Evergreen reminder that when it comes to the bare minimum for men helping women pursue their art that the bar is in hell, but fortunately Levine and Goyer were unafraid to leap over it and let Stevenson run wild.
Levine pointed out that there was a bit of irony in fighting with the MPA because to avoid the explicitness of the shot of the vagina, the team had to take bigger creative swings to try and get the R-rating. "We had to go back and forth with the ratings board five times," said Levine. "Weirdly, avoiding the NC-17 made it more intense." I've yet to see the scene in question and neither the director nor producers explained what the scene entails, but it certainly sounds like it is the inevitable birth of the titular omen. The scene in question was apparently 13 seconds long but was cut down to what we'll see in the final film.
"There was a preview where I was sitting with the audience and the guy in front of me was eating M&Ms the whole time," said Stevenson. "Then that shot came on, and his mouth opened, and M&Ms just fell out." Apologies to the minimum wage worker who had to clean up the floor candy afterward, but if that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is.
"The First Omen" arrives in theaters on April 5, 2024.