Write On: 'The First Omen' Writers Arkasha Stevenson and Tim Smith

“We had to go back to the ratings board five times. It was a long
journey. You have to laugh sometimes, because we had some really
grotesque imagery in our film. We even have a demon phallus in
the film and nobody was worried about that. It was really the
image of the vagina that was getting us that rating,” says
Arkasha Stevenson, director, and co-screenwriter for The First
Omen, about initially getting an NC17 rating from the Motion
Picture Association. After much back and forth, the film is now
rated R. 


The First Omen was written by Tim Smith and Arkasha Stevenson
with Stevenson also directing. The film is a prequel to the
classic horror film The Omen (1976) and stays true to the
narrative that brings Damian, the antichrist, into the world. But
keeping faithful to the original film proved to be challenging in
a number of ways. 


“Because we grew up on The Omen,” says Stevenson, “it has such a
special place in our hearts. We knew that it has such a special
place every horror fan’s heart, too… We didn't want to tarnish
anything, so trying to find a balance where we were trying to
create something new, and have our own world, and characters and
messages within that, but also pay homage to the original omen,
and also have tie-ins and callbacks – it was interesting to try
and figure out how to have a conversation with the original
film,” she says.


We also discuss how the film explores the theme of control over
women’s bodies and how the current political climate factored
into the story considering abortion is such a hot-button issue.
To hear more about the writing of the film and how Stevenson and
Smith came to the project, listen to the podcast.