Two 2024 Horror Movies Share The Exact Same Premise (& Continue A Failed Genre Trend)

Two of 2024’s biggest upcoming horror movies, Immaculate and The First Omen, tell a similar story and revisit a genre trend that hasn’t fared well in recent years. 2024 will be a big year for horror. Blumhouse’s Imaginary will try to replicate the success of M3GAN, the Alien franchise returns to screens with the upcoming Alien: Romulus in August, and the indie hit Terrifier will receive a second sequel near the end of the year. However, despite how varied the genre’s offerings are in 2024, two of the year’s biggest horror releases inexplicably share the exact same storyline.

The upcoming horror movie Immaculate features rising star Sydney Sweeney as its main character, a young woman who joins a convent and discovers that what seems to be a blessing soon turns out to be a curse. Meanwhile, the forthcoming The Omen prequel The First Omen, will follow an almost identical storyline. Arriving in cinemas only two weeks apart, Immaculate and The First Omen will struggle to stand out since both movies borrow elements from Rosemary’s Baby, 1977’s Suspiria, and The Omen, including a particularly contentious recurring horror theme that hasn’t fared well with critics in recent years.

Immaculate & The First Omen Tell The Same Story

In theaters March 22, Immaculate is about a devout woman who is sent to an Italian convent, only to fall pregnant and uncover the horrifying secrets of the convent’s inhabitants. The First Omen, which will arrive in theaters on April 5, is the story of a young woman who is sent to a church in Italy but discovers a terrifying conspiracy to bring about the birth of the Antichrist. It is easy to guess that Immaculate’s heroine will be impregnated with the devil, and fair to assume The First Omen’s plot will see the heroine used as a vessel for the baby who will become Damien Thorn’s birth.

Since Immaculate is a NEON release and The First Omen is a continuation of the Omen franchise, there could have been quite a significant aesthetic difference between the big studio horror and the smaller indie release. However, both movies instead seem to look visually homogeneous judging by their trailers. This makes their similarity more striking and more problematic since the two movies share the same tone, POV character, and fundamental plot elements. To make matters worse, both The First Omen and Immaculate are pregnancy horrors. This sub-genre has struggled to attract positive critical attention despite a deluge of underwhelming efforts in recent years.

Immaculate & The First Omen Continue The Pregnancy Horror Trend

Since 2016, there have been a string of pregnancy horror movies and TV shows that failed to win over critics. 2016’s Visions, the same year’s Inside remake, 2021’s False Positive, 2022’s Bed Rest, and 2023’s Unwelcome and Baby Ruby all failed to make a mark with critics. This is down to several reasons. For starters, some of those movies simply weren’t good, with derivative takes on the existential horror and body horror of pregnancy.

Since the fall of Roe vs. Wade, pregnancy as a topic has gotten far more complicated in America. It’s hard for audiences to engage in pregnancy horror when real-life pregnancy horrors are already unfolding across the country. While horror often reflects current societal fears, it’s an issue that is very likely too personal and fraught for audiences, especially people who can get pregnant, to want to see it fictionalized in an abstract way on screen. Despite how persistently tricky pregnancy horror proves, both Immaculate and The First Omen are vying to revive the sub-genre in 2024 and their similarities will make it even harder for the two movies to stand out.