340: The First Omen (2024)

SPEAKER_00 0:04

It makes absolutely perfect sense that Christ would be a Capricorn and yet the Antichrist would be a Gemini.

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You know.

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Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hacker Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. I won't let anything bad happen to you. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack, a total joke, a waste of time, or a slash.

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Totally killer. Pun intended.

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We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rating these movies with a perspective we've gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Superfly Space Guy Mac.

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She wasn't conceived naturally.

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The classic horror connoisseur Sean.

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The miracle of life can be a messy business.

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And the paranormal paramour Binx. The girl is sick in the head. This week we're checking out a 2024 film that serves as a prequel to an iconic franchise. This week's film drops us in the year 1971, a time of upheaval, change, and political unrest. A young American woman arrives in Rome, ready to commit her life to the church, where the cobblestone streets lead her into a darkness that threatens far more than her faith. Her journey of faith reveals a conspiracy so dark it aims to orchestrate the birth of an evil beyond comprehension. The film wields the precision of contemporary filmmaking while planting its roots deeply in the era style. And in doing so, it manages to bridge decades and forge a prequel that both respects its origins and enhances the lore of its predecessor. This week we're talking about the first omen. Who's seen this one before?

SPEAKER_07 1:45

I actually did not get to catch this one in theaters, but I was able to watch it when it first became available to stream. I'm kind of mad that I didn't see it in theaters, but it's all good. Funny enough, this has got to be like the second or third time, but I didn't think about doing this for the fucking podcast for some reason, because it just wasn't in the immediate lineup, and I found myself watching this one for a second time the other day.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

Meanwhile, I definitely saw this film on Premiere Day in theaters, and boy oh boy, did I have quite the reaction leaving said theater.

SPEAKER_05 2:19

I bet.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

I mean, obviously, overall I've seen this as a you know the franchise and whatnot, but yeah, I'm glad I saw this in theaters, and then I just finished re-watching it earlier today. What an experience. Both watching it at home and also in theaters. It's a shame you didn't get to catch it then.

SPEAKER_08 2:35

Yeah, I did not watch it in theater. I watched it just streaming from home, and it was one of those that, like, when you see the trailer or just like the poster for it, you just think, okay, cool, I'll catch it when it hits streaming. It wasn't something that was like, oh my gosh, I need to be there opening night.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

I managed to catch this in theaters. I got to see it with Allie and another one of our friends, but I had no intentions of seeing this. This is one of those where I've seen the Omen from the 70s. I've seen the 2006 remake because of all the marketing behind 666. I think that was also on June 6, 2006. I think that was a day that at MLB, the angels were playing the Devil Rays, and they thought that was like a cute mix-up of sorts. This was a home moment in 2006. But this it wasn't a franchise that I was super jazzed about going to see. I know Ali really wanted to see it, so I checked it out. But going into this, I really expected it to take a lot of the sinister undertone, but make it feel way more brutal.

SPEAKER_07 3:32

For me, going into this film for the first time, knowing how impactful the Omen 1976 was and is in horror cinema, I was really expecting, maybe hoping for this to be able to tap into that magic a little bit. I want to see those intense scenes. I want to see those iconic scenes. I'm looking for those dark religious themes, a solid soundtrack, some good atmosphere. That's what I'm hoping, kind of expecting, but mostly hoping to see.

SPEAKER_03 4:03

I think that in terms of when this was released, I was a little hesitant at first because, and I'll get into this a little bit later, but it was in a moment where it was literally challenging another nun-related film just a few weeks prior. Was that Immaculate? Immaculate.

SPEAKER_07 4:20

Oh, we won't talk about that.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

We yeah, we're definitely gonna talk about that. But I think when I watched the trailer, knowing that Immaculate was gonna be coming out more or less around the same time frame, I was already a little nervous about it. And then a few months prior, we were doing the episodes on the nun. So when I saw the trailer, I was like, all right, similar nun setting, the omen, God, 1976. That's such a great film. How are they gonna do this in terms of a prequel? I was curious. I wasn't necessarily put off by it. And it really a lot of that has to do with Nell Tiger Free, our main lead. She's in M. Night Shyamal's Servant. I know Sean and I have seen that one. Such a great fucking show. So, so good. I can't recommend it enough. And I know that M. Knight's very much head or miss, but the big reason is because she's an incredible actress. And so if someone was gonna do it right, I know it's gonna be her in terms of a prequel for this franchise.

SPEAKER_07 5:15

Oh my gosh. Yeah, it seemed like a fur it seemed like a perfect fit, honestly. She's fantastic.

SPEAKER_08 5:21

My expectations were so much lower than yours. They were as low as they can go, and it's not even due to anything about the marketing, it's not anything to do with I didn't even watch the trailer. It has everything to do with Exorcist Believer. And that taught me that you could take a film that people love and make however many years later, this well-advertised sequel, and it's garbage, completely unrelated to the original movie, except for one forced tie-in. And this is obviously spoiling how I feel about Exorcist Believer, but no, I mean it really did make me think okay, they're gonna make a prequel to the Omen. There's been what, like five sequels already, or four sequels, or something like that, and it's been how many years since the last time they tried to do it? Yeah, they're gonna give it the Exorcist Believer treatment. So I was honestly expecting it to be like a garbage movie.

SPEAKER_07 6:09

That's fair.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

I think the thing for me is looking at what you just said, Exorcist Believer does something super different from The Exorcist, but I find that movies that hinge upon the power of faith aren't really a big home run for me. Now, the omen doesn't necessarily, and that's okay. I think I've I don't know what the rest of that franchise is like, but this isn't one that when we think about just spirituality or anything that I haven't felt like super compelled to watch or dive into. I don't gravitate to this. Going into this when you have this hope that it's gonna be more brutal, if it doesn't get brutal, it can be a little hit or miss. Watching this, it felt interesting, but I think there are some moments that also just felt so long. I felt every minute of this two-hour runtime. And there are valleys of boredom, but there are actually really key peaks that make the burn feel worthwhile. And this is where it got really interesting for me because when I thought about that brutality, I thought physical brutality, viciousness, but instead what I got was like this emotional brutality, this like predatory sense, this tension, this feeling of suffocation, this violation. There's like this sinister predatory undertone and subtext that oozes from this movie's pores. And it's difficult in the same way that I think watching parts of Rosemary's baby is difficult, but this feels worse in a good way.

SPEAKER_08 7:38

That is an apt description of the effects that this movie has on you. It right away drew me in with just like the cinematography here, the way they paced out their shots and the the panning of the camera, and then match that up with the setting. Like I could feel the dust in the air, and I could smell the incense-laden mustiness everywhere. They really do a great job here of placing you in that environment and you you feel like you're there. So when they have those moments of tension, it's even more real because it already feels like you're in the moment. And then when they make you wait for something to happen or not happen, you're you were gonna bite your nails off.

SPEAKER_07 8:17

Yeah, I think we'll touch on the runtime for sure in a bit, and I see where you're coming from on that. I think for me, unsettling is the feeling you get from this film. That is the feeling. This movie is immersed in atmosphere. You have excellent shots and scenes that have some beautiful set design and lighting, and then you have these buildups with this really great acting, and it leads to really tense and unsettling moments. And some of the things that you're touching on, Mac, it just leaves you with this really anxious, unsettled feeling of tension. And whether they give you something or not, it just creates that feeling. And I think that was just the biggest thing that just took over that feeling of just being unsettled from pretty much the start to the finish.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Absolutely. And you bring up the start, which I think right off the bat establishes this film as like a love letter specifically to not only like classic horror, but the omen 1976 specifically. And we talk a lot about unsettling, absolutely. But one thing that I felt, even in this rewatch, is that it goes from unsettling to this dazed, happy, go-lucky ambiance amidst what we obviously know as a viewer is a fucked up scenario. And I think a lot of that has to do with, again, going back to Nell Tiger Free and how she portrays our main character, Margaret. She, this character, Margaret, she's very hopeful and pathetic, and she's excited to be a nun and to join this cloister, but then slowly but surely is uncovering the brutality and horror that is going around her, right? Especially in this church. And so as a viewer, I feel like I'm just spiraling more and more into this very disturbing and fucked up and like, what am I watching? Horror film. It's something that I definitely didn't anticipate through the trailers, didn't anticipate even as I was watching it. I know that without a doubt, when I left the theater and even today, I'm like, this is probably the most disturbed I've felt in a good while. And I think that's incredible, specifically for the fact that Arkasha Stevenson, she's the director, this is her first film. This is her debut film. Okay, talk. Let's talk about women in film right now and their debuts. They're knocking it out of the park. And that is a great segue to what is my disappointment. I mentioned it a little bit earlier, and it's the fact that it's released or was released alongside Immaculate. And that's not to say that Immaculate, that's a separate movie. We're not reviewing it right now. I want to just talk about in general, none and this devil incarnate film thing that was happening with Immaculate and the first omen coming out at the same time. It's unfortunate because it deterred people from watching this film and checking it out just because they were exhausted of none films. They were exhausted of it. And we got, and again, the Nun Two earlier. And that's a shame. Cause at the time that this film was being discussed, being talked about in studios, was being filmed, Roe v. Wade was recently overturned just a few months ago. And I think common audiences aren't realizing is of course we're going to have films regarding women's bodily autonomy, especially when it comes to politics and how religion is being integrated into that. Of course we're going to have that. And how are we else going to get it if it isn't in nun films and this kind of devil incarnate topic? So of course I'm getting like big picture about it. I just feel like people didn't realize it at the time. They just throw it away and are like, oh God, another nun film. But it's like, guys, horror films are always talking about the things and the horrors that we are living in real life. And that is what this film is. And to write it off just because there was another Sydney Sweeney film that was going on at the same time, which again, we're not reviewing, we're not talking about, right? But it's just like it sucks. I think it's unfortunate, especially because this was her debut, like the director's debut. It sucks.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

I'm just gonna say this. I didn't fucking watch Immaculate. So in my mind, this movie won. There you go.

SPEAKER_06 12:23

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

You know, Binks, you talk about the bigger picture of this, and for sure, there's a lot baked into the fibers of this movie story and its commentary and what it discusses. But I actually want to look at this from a slightly different perspective, and it's the one disappointment I have. When I watched this in theaters, I had not seen the original omen from 1976 since maybe early 2000s. Maybe. I think I watched it maybe around the time that the 2006 remake came out. So I watched this, and then when I got out of it, I thought, okay, if we ever do this for the podcast, I'm gonna watch this again, but then I'm gonna watch the omen right after it because of the way that this movie positions itself as a prequel. And I'm disappointed in the continuity between the two. And I think that's the one thing that in retrospect, I don't know if it takes away from this movie or if it just makes me feel worse about the original omen, but it leaves me with a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Now, examining it as its own entity though, this works so well as a standalone film, and I love that. It balances enough detail to make a deeper dive worthwhile. I think if you're a fan of the original, if you're a fan of just horror cinema in general, you're gonna find a lot to dig your teeth into in this movie. And that shouldn't feel surprising, right? That's part of what makes a good prequel. But sometimes there are prequels that jam in fan service to the point where it's obvious even if you haven't seen the original films. Let's talk go right back to Mac, The Exorcist Believer. The second you get a little meddly, you know something's happening, right? This doesn't do that, and I think it's a very, very tasteful way to approach it.

SPEAKER_07 14:05

Yeah, I think it's interesting for sure. I don't know if that same disappointment carries over for me, although I do also agree with Binks, like that it suffered from being released at the same time as Immaculate or around the same time as Immaculate. But I think what you said, Binks, you know, feature film debut, what have you, I think she has done some short films and things like that, but nothing to this caliber. And I gotta admit, knowing that I was a little bit worried about how this one was gonna go for that reason. But surprisingly, I feel like the film was really well done. It came out a lot better than I anticipated it, to be honest. And I feel like I don't know if we're talking about the same things, Chris, but the slight redirection or reimagining of the lore, the backstory, it was a surprising, it was a little bit surprising. I feel like I think it was a bit bold, but I don't feel like it was disappointing. I don't know if we're talking about the same things or if you're just talking about how it ends and sets up for the next film. But that really is the thing that I feel like could have been one of the most disappointing things in the film, but I don't think I don't think it was. I think it it worked out well for the film, at least for this film. Even thinking about the 1976 Omen, I I know there's some lore changes, there's some facts that have been twisted around, and we're gonna talk about that, but I don't think it really ruined it. It was graceful enough. The biggest disappointment of this film probably is the two-hour runtime, just because I feel like it could have been an hour and a half to an hour and 45. There are parts that could have been edited down a little bit. There it does feel like a slow burn in some areas, but that's like nitpicking. You know what I mean? That's not something that I feel like absolutely needs to happen to make this a fantastic film. I'm just thinking two hours thinking through the movie, could we have narrowed it down a little bit to get to a shorter film? Probably.

SPEAKER_08 15:53

Jeez, let me tell you then about five things that pleasantly surprised me. The first two, that's gonna be the score and the soundtrack. Those two things were fantastic. Loved it. We had some moments where they would play some music, and I was like, oh my gosh, like, how could you have picked a better song to match the scene that we're moving out of or moving into? The other three things that surprised me are humans: Ralph Innocent, Charles Dance, and most of all, Bill Nye, the casting here, they brought in some heavy, heavy hitters. And it's always great to see Bill Knight in something that is not comedic or it's something that is comedic because he like excels no matter what he does. It was just wonderful choices, and I think everyone was who was supporting did a great job. I think that the gosh, our main character here, like that that has you either have to go all out or you have to play it very subtle. And we had somehow both we had both performances in the same movie. It was incredibly impressive, but that doesn't hold up if everyone else is lame. And no, they had a great supporting cast here.

SPEAKER_03 16:53

Thank you for bringing up the score, by the way. I I got a little curious and I had to look it up because you unlocked the fact that I loved it, and I did want to Google who did the comp like who composed it essentially. So I looked it up real quick, and they funny enough, they did do the score for Cube. I wasn't on that episode, but I know what y'all's thoughts were. However, a couple collaborations with the one and only Robert Eggers on The Witch, the Lighthouse, also did the black phone. So those three alone are pretty outstanding scores. So I completely agree with you. The score is incredible, and I think it helps build that dread and that disturbing tension. Like, please, I just want to stop this moment. Oh God, the hairs were lifting up on my body. Like, I just did not feel okay in certain scenes, guys. I did not. There were a couple scenes that were obviously supposed to make you feel unnerved and unsettled, like we've talked about, but there was one scene in particular. Okay, I actually saw this film with Ripley, and let me tell you that the both of us were holding on to each other and like begging for the scene to please stop because it was a slow burn that played on a couple of senses and phobias at once. It was like homage to even like Cronenberg for a moment there. Like it was really weird and not okay. So I think, in terms of fear and the fright factor of it all, it doesn't have the classic jump scares and the classic horror stuff and whatnot, right? I actually recommended this film to my brother and he got back to me saying, like, oh, it wasn't scary at all. And I was like, I didn't recommend it to you because it was scary. I recommended it to you because it's disturbing as fuck. And like there are scenes and moments here where you want to leave your body and please turn off the TV at times. So that's what this film's gonna do for you. If you're looking for the classic jump scare and the James Wanted all, look somewhere else.

SPEAKER_08 18:55

But I I I love that though. I love that though, because there's a scene, and we can talk about it later, of course. There's a scene that any other movie today would have done as a jump scare. And this movie chose to take its time and pan and zoom, or maybe not even zoom. Maybe we just panned and sat there staring in the darkness for a minute. And that choice, I think, worked really well for just like the overall feeling of this movie. It didn't make it scary to me. I'm sure there's people who watch this who were like grabbing each other's shoulders in the movie theater. None of the movies we watch really have that effect on me. It is very gross in many moments. That is for sure. And there's a lot of spots that are gonna make a squirm a good bit. And so I'll give them credit for that. But I love the fact that they didn't try to get you with the jump scares. And if they make any more after this, do what you did here because taking your time is always appreciated by me.

SPEAKER_07 19:49

The score does add to the intensity of some of these scenes. We don't get the traditional jump scares. What you're all saying is 100% accurate. I think the horror that you're gonna get is from the lore. It's the story as it unfolds, it's this hauntingly eerie atmosphere with a couple of things that might not be traditional jump scares, but there's certain situations and flashes that I feel like could get you if you're just like sitting on the edge of your seat, like that kind of thing. And then there are those scenes that really just grab you and twist your insides, and you're like, oh my god, what am I watching right now? So there is that level, like you're gonna get a high level of feelings in this movie. It may not be reactions from audio spikes and traditional jump scares, but it is horrific for sure.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

It's the examination of control and autonomy. And Binx, you described it so beautifully earlier, but that's the real horror of this film. So this may not be something that's gonna hit for a lot of people. I watched this the first time and I was struck by a lot of it, but watching it a second time, I'm disturbed and have like personal relationships with this movie in a much stranger way than I ever really think wanted to consciously acknowledge when I saw this in theaters. It's something that sits with you, and I think that's where it really earns a lot of its originality. It earns points for being deeply unsettling with the way that it leans into scenes that are sheer nightmare fuel. These this movie has scenes that are genuine nightmares for people.

SPEAKER_06 21:24

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

And it lingers in it, it dwells in it, it really wants to take you along for that ride, it makes you squirm where the original film it relies more on tension and you knowing what's going on and imagining what bad things can happen next. This movie's about the present moment, and that is what's terrifying and different in a departure from the rest of the franchise.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

What Stevenson did with this film in terms of originality, we talked a little bit about maybe some omen lore that she twisted, and we can get into that in detail a little bit later. So maybe that's where we can say originality is a be. Daring enough to change a couple things to be able to tell this story in the way that it needed to be told, to then bring in all of these disturbing scenes and tell a story of female body horror, tell a story of, like I mentioned earlier, the removal of female bodily autonomy in a religious setting. But I'm just gonna rattle off a few names here, okay? Because this is the biggest thing of it all is that this is a massive love letter to a ton of great classics and horror. So we've got a personal favorite of mine, and a the biggest one, if anything, is possession. We have repulsion, we have Eyes Without a Face. We have, of course, Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, Elizabeth Taylor's Identicate, and then more recently, I'd even say smile, okay, for a small brief moment.

SPEAKER_05 22:47

I see it.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

For a small brief moment, and I already mentioned the Cronenberg of it all too. Incredible. This girl said, Name all name me all of the best ones. I'm gonna do every single one of them right now. And did it so freaking well, to me at least. I thought it was so beautifully done, so subtle in some moments, incredible work in terms of originality and daring enough to do all of that and to pitch it to Disney girl.

SPEAKER_07 23:12

To pitch it to Disney. It's a really kind of refreshing prequel to get, especially in horror, because not many sequels, prequels, what have you end up doing very well, especially when you try to do something from something that's been already well established for so many years. And you could easily argue the point, you know, and I don't want to beat a dead horse or anything, but the whole thing with this coming out at the same time as Immaculate, the whole thing of this plot, in essence, is the exact same thing as Immaculate, you know, different reasons, different subtle points and whatnot. But in a nutshell, it's the same fucking story. And so when you look at it from that angle, how can it be original? But then when you look at what it really does do and how it delivers, and man, it's just very interesting to see that this origin story kind of unfold. And the fact that this movie and this director is bold enough to change the lore, I think just says something that has to come into play for the originality of this film.

SPEAKER_08 24:16

And you you've had decades to think about how to do the storytelling for something like this. And there's you mentioned it, Banks, a lot of shoulders to stand on here. I I was even getting feelings of like end of days, good omens of all things. Like was feeling that a little bit. There was plenty of moments that maybe you think about like Suspiria, both versions of Suspiria as well, even the exorcist. There's just so much here that it's pulled from. And you can either do that where it seems like you just cobbled together pieces of other movies, or you can do it like this, where it seems like you're able to learn from all those other stories, not just what they did visually, but like how do they choose to tell their story and how do they choose to have their characters interact and develop from the beginning to the end here? And I think they were able to successfully say, Okay, we we know all this stuff, let's write our own story and let's put it all together in a way that like makes sense, works well. Even if you point to 15 other movies, it's not a negative here.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

It really isn't, but you mentioned there, Mac, how do you take your characters from the beginning to the end? By nature, a movie and its ending has to leave you with a promise of what's next, or the question of what's next, or what else could happen. But a prequel in and of itself, you already know what happens next. So it has to give not only a really fascinating character arc, but it also has to really give an ending that I think sets up the next film well. I absolutely loved the ending of this movie. There is something that is a disconnect for me. I mentioned this earlier, and Sean, I don't take Umbridge with the small details that were changed. That's fine by me.

SPEAKER_06 25:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

But there is a disconnect in terms of the in terms of the consistency of some of these people and what uh some of these people, what's going on, that just does not make for a cohesive watch.

SPEAKER_06 26:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

It's like ending this movie, starting the next, and in some ways it is cohesive, and in other ways where it's like, ugh, okay, this feels a little bit jarring. But again, as an entity, as its own movie, this ending I don't think could have gone any better.

SPEAKER_07 26:19

I'm curious to see you like elaborate a little bit more on that when we get into the second half in the spoiler section, but I feel like I really enjoyed agree, I enjoyed the ending of this film a lot. I know that there are some details and some things that are a little bit interesting to see how it's going to play into the omen 1976, just trying to think about how this ends and how that starts and all of that. That is a very interesting thing because there's some questions, you know, there's just naturally some questions. And I'm just curious to see where your head's at, where my head's at, and if we are talking about the the same details or not, I don't know. But I do like how this new lore is maybe going to play into this franchise or even has the ability to play into this franchise because not only does it like carry into 1976, and you know, in essence, it it does deliver that handoff into the timeline of things, and that's cool. But there is this possibility of maybe having a spin-off of some sorts, right? There is this possibility of diving deeper into some characters that we may not have had before and things like that. And so that's interesting. But here's the thing when we talk, somebody mentioned earlier about like from beginning to end, right? And I loved seeing how Nell Tiger Free's character, Margaret, opens the film. It's almost like she's this very naive, angelic figure. It's very bright, it's colorful. You just get all of these vibrant colors in the beginning of the film with Nell Tiger Free. And then by the end of the film, Margaret has really just transcended down and is, without giving too much away right now, literally walking downstairs. That's what we'll call it. You know what I mean? It's literally just from one end of the spectrum to the next, from beginning to end, light to dark, it is a transformation, and it was incredible to witness.

SPEAKER_03 28:14

Absolutely. It's like I said, it's like you're spiraling slowly and surely, like the light is going out. And I do like the ending. I think that there is a small cliche part of it, right? That is necessary. And I struggle when I talk to my friends about this ending because in a way, how do you expect this to end when you know that this is a whole franchise? It's like you said, Chris, it's like you this is a prequel. You know how this is gonna go. So why are you questioning decisions by of certain characters? Why are you like, why are we getting into this whole debate when you know how this is gonna go? So I think that what Stevenson does with this film and how it ends makes sense for who the characters are, knowing full well that we need to now go into the ohm in 1976. However, that small little part that I'm talking about, I think was just a little bit too cliche. And I think it can remove you from this spiral. It might be like a cold splash of water on your face because it's giving a little bit too much CW, a little bit too superhero.

SPEAKER_07 29:23

Not the CW.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

Yeah, like it's giving a little bit too Marvel MCU, you know, and credit. That's a bit of a shame. I don't think that they necessarily needed it to have that seamless transition into the Omen 1976. But alas, what are you gonna do? And I know, and I think I do know what you're talking about, Chris, because I think we've talked about it a little bit. It it is a part of that cliche moment where if they had just removed that, maybe it it even would have helped that continuity piece that you're talking about. I can't wait for us to get into it.

SPEAKER_08 29:50

There's a couple different ways they could have approached this. I think a lot of other movies would have said, All right, we have our climax roll credits, we're done. They chose to stick to a traditional Frey Tog's pyramid and have a falling action and get into the denouement. And they really wanted to tie up those loose ends here, but at the same time, they wanted to throw out a couple loose ends, it feels like at the very end there. They wanted to basically sequel bait when this is a prequel, which was kind of strange, unless they plan on making another prequel.

SPEAKER_07 30:18

That's what I'm saying. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_08 30:20

Yeah, and so I'm curious if that's the plan, because that's what it felt like to me. It did not feel like we are ready for the omen. It felt like we're ready for the second omen or whatever on earth they would name a sequel to a prequel in this case here. But yeah, I mean, if that's not in the plans, then it was kind of a weird way to end it. We got to the ending of what I thought was the end of the movie, right? We have our climax, and then it was like, wow, oh my gosh, I'm ready to watch the omen. And then another scene started, and I literally commented out loud, oh, it's not over. It kind of felt like Lord of the Rings to me for a minute. And we jump into that scene, it was like, oh, okay, I get it. You're just trying to set us up for whatever's next. And I'll agree with Minx. I don't think it was necessary. I don't think it's a bad ending, though. It works either way. It just kind of leads me to believe there's something more here that you want to show us.

SPEAKER_07 31:10

It's like it played an audible on the field, right on the snap, right before the snap, it played an audible, and it's like, I gotta have options here. QB sneak or going for a long pass.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Well, we'll see how we all land on this movie. But before we start actually rating it, Sean, how would you describe the gore score?

SPEAKER_07 31:26

This one is interesting to say the least, for sure. This is one of those ones that there is some good quality gore in this one with some great effects. I feel like we get to see some blood and guts, but in those moments, nothing that would give us more than a happy medium gore score. But then we get these other moments where the film takes you there and then does you one better and takes it borderline too far, which makes me want to give it a high gore score, but I feel like we're gonna meet in the middle with a medium high gore score.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

And what about the animal report?

SPEAKER_03 31:58

So I feel like on principle, I want to say that the animal report is definitely not okay. There's a biblical reference to an animal that doesn't feel safe. So I'm gonna give this a little sus, but no normal animals are harmed.

SPEAKER_07 32:11

A little sus.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Let's go ahead and get into our ratings then. The first omen from 2024, was it a hack or a slash?

SPEAKER_07 32:18

Look, I'm gonna keep this one short. I'm just gonna throw it out there. I overall, I just feel like this was a very solid film. It's a little bit long, sure. It is sort of a slow burn, I get it, but this movie delivers a storyline that is interesting and it immerses you in a world that is truly captivating. The film is very atmospheric, and the cinematography delivers some absolutely stunning shots. It wasn't afraid to take this on, it wasn't afraid to reimagine the story a little bit, and I think it paid off, to be honest, with most of what it did. There was this sense of opaque mysticism about the original omen 1976. And I think what this film does is it brings you behind the scenes of an absurdly terrifying concept that is drenched in religious dread. And I feel like this film successfully delivered a solid prequel to a beloved film in horror cinema, and it did so with grace and thoughtfulness, and it's a sinful slash for me.

SPEAKER_08 33:19

Sinful.

SPEAKER_07 33:20

Gotta be sinning.

SPEAKER_08 33:21

I love that. This is just an example of good storytelling. I think a lot of movies they want to show us a lot of stuff, you know, they want to wow us with visuals and they want to maybe catch us off guard with really cool effects. And I think this movie has cool effects, it has good visuals, but really it just focuses on telling a good story with good characters that you either care about or maybe you don't really love that much from the beginning, but you don't know why. And it delivers, I think, on the why behind a lot of things here. And I think when I'm talking about storytelling, it has nothing to do with like how do they have characters move through the world or anything like that. It has to do with what's the point of this movie? Is it clear on screen? Is it clear in the dialogue? The characters that we have, are they real? Do they feel real? And I think we have a lot of depth here with our characters. There's moments that seem like red herrings throughout the film that then patch themselves up and keep you on moving. And then by the time you get to the end, everything is made painfully clear. And you feel like you've been through an experience watching this movie. It's like listening to someone tell a good joke or tell a good campfire story. And every detail they give you is welcomed. It's not annoying. It's not like one of those stories somebody's telling you, and you're like, I just want to, I just want to go. I just want to run away. Please end the story right now. No, I think by the end of it, you're left thinking, like, oh my gosh, how did I handle all of that information? And it was just masterful. I think I enjoyed it from start to finish. And that is in 2024, very welcomed for of all things a prequel. So it's a slash.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

So I shared how earlier this film had me so disturbed and how it's an incredible love letter to many classics films I love or are inspirations to many great horror directors out there. And with it being Stevens' directorial debut, this could have gone either way, and it was incredible and daring. Like I said, she outright went for it to pitch this straight to Disney with what clearly contains some extremely disturbing imagery, and they were down for it. Especially when this film tackles the lack of female agency over one's body while also serving as a generic origin story for what is obviously a legendary horror IP. This really could have gone very south or hit the mark. And to me, it hit the fucking mark. There are stills from this film that I believe will still be brought up for decades to come. So bravo to the director of photography, the cinematography, the whole production team, because they also fucking nailed it and I think did such great justice to all of those horror films that I mentioned earlier. So that being said, I think if you are a lover of the genre and even arthouse film in general, I think you will definitely be satisfied with this film. I know that I've seen it twice now. I definitely would see it again, but I want to highlight my first watch when I obviously saw it in theaters. I left that theater with a large popcorn in my hand, screaming to the sky, I love movies. I have a witness, ask Ripley. I was so moved and so fucking hyped after seeing this film. So far, as of the today recording, it is my favorite horror film of 2024. I will go on record saying that it was incredible. So that being said, if it doesn't tell you how much of a fucking slash this is, then I don't know what will.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

I can't wait to see if something unseats it by the end of the year.

SPEAKER_03 36:48

I have a guess as to what it might be. So far, this is the winner.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

We'll see. Listen, my issue with this movie is how long it feels. And I know I have my other issue with the ending, or maybe not the ending, but something that exists within the entire movie. But once you get past that, this movie is absolutely rock solid, just like you said, Sean. And Mac, you described it as an example of just good storytelling. This movie is uncomfortable, but and it reminds me in a very twisted way of things that I experienced and felt as a teenager entering adulthood. Not that I've ever been in these characters' shoes, by no means, right? But when a movie can tap into that and pray into that kind of feeling without being too much, I think that's a really, really deft hand. Before this movie, and I think this is what really sums it up. Before this movie, I didn't give a damn about Damien. But our girl walked so Damien could ride his stupid fucking bike in the omen and make me actually care about that franchise. So for that, it's a slash. And with that, the first omen from 2024, Hands are no universal slash. You can't find this movie available streaming online. Check the link in our show notes to see where you can find it right now. Go check it out. Then join us in the second half so we can break down that lore together. We'll see you in a bit.

SPEAKER_07 38:15

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SPEAKER_00 39:51

Welcome back, folks. You're now entering the spoiler zone for the first omen from 2024, which has earned a universal slash. Now we have a lot to unpack here, but before we get into the specifics of our ratings, let's go through those kills.

SPEAKER_07 40:09

13 of those being just the test babies that were born deformed and killed or what have you, right? So that's just sad.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

R.I.P. 13 babies.

SPEAKER_07 40:20

R.I.P.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Classic Sean move.

SPEAKER_07 40:22

Yeah. It had to be 13. It's super fitting. There were a total of 15 files, as we know, and 13 of them died because they also mentioned that Margaret and Carlita were like the only two survivors. So that's how we got to that number in case you were wondering. But 20 kills in total and some pretty solid ones in here. So let's talk about them. What were your favorite kills?

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Okay. There are so many to choose from, but I want to go for a very traumatic one. And that was portions of Paolo. Hamburger Helper Paolo. The bisect. The lateral horizontal bisect of Paolo. Man.

SPEAKER_03 40:58

Bro, when are you and I gonna have different favorite kills, bro? When? We always have differing opinions, and yet somehow always the same godforsaken favorite kill.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Because we like the good shit.

SPEAKER_07 41:11

So goddamn the same.

SPEAKER_03 41:13

But take it away, Binx. Yo, it was just so sad. Not only was he hot as fuck, Binx kinks.

SPEAKER_07 41:19

Favorite kill for completely different reasons. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

I was here for the emotional shock and the trauma of it all.

SPEAKER_07 41:26

Binx is just sad that the hot dude died in the film.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

And his dick was what got crushed, probably.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

Bro, the chemistry between them at the club? At the club was so hot.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Legend has it, his crotch is still pinned against that truck.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

That truck better work. No, I'm kidding. That's so fucked up. No, but really, okay. Listen, I felt like it was extremely fucked up because the the chemistry between them was so adorable. I loved how they were playing off of each other at the club and and the whole butterfly thing when he was trying to lure her down to dance. And I just thought it was so cute and adorable.

SPEAKER_07 42:03

And obviously, but then he was in on it, that fucking asshole.

SPEAKER_03 42:07

Yeah. Well, right. And then it's like you she wakes up the next day and you initially think, Oh, it's because she had a wild night. Fast forward, you know what really happened to her, and he was a part of that. So when you see him freaking out, you're still kind of wondering, like, what happened? Obviously, you get the hint that something more occurred. But regardless, in general, it just seems like he just got in mixed into some crazy ass shit. Obviously, I'm not an a Bowl apologist just because he's hot, but it is very sad, regardless. Her reaction when she tries to stop him from dying, tries to be there for him, and she full on rips him in half and is holding him.

SPEAKER_07 42:45

Did anyone else feel like that was just like at least a tiny bit campy? I thought it was a tiny bit campy.

SPEAKER_03 42:51

Okay, sure. Sure.

SPEAKER_07 42:52

Literally, she just ripped his whole upper torso off, and it was it was too good.

SPEAKER_03 42:58

It was great. And we just like sit in it for a while. We're just like, oh, ma'am.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

But it's also Paolo's delivery of I'm stuck, I'm scared, I don't want to die. It was such a moment. Like, yes, it was a little bit of camp, you know what I mean? It's a little bit of silly goose. What are you doing out here grabbing things? That can't make any sense. But it was still gut-wrenching, and her emotional breakdown after that, 10 out of 10. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_08 43:25

This movie really did not waste any of the kills that I can remember at least. Like they went big on a lot of them. I think the other one that was pretty stellar was uh Sister Angelica, because you were thinking, okay, she's losing a little bit, she's gonna hop off that thing and splatter on the ground. And they were like, nah, dude, not so easy. She's gonna set herself on fire and then hang and swing. And that was unexpected. They really surprised me there. So I was like, This that's stellar when you can surprise us with a kill.

SPEAKER_03 43:56

So that was iconic for a Very specific reason in terms of the original one. I'm not gonna spoil it.

SPEAKER_07 44:03

A nod to another kill.

SPEAKER_03 44:05

Yeah, nod to another kill.

SPEAKER_07 44:07

Birthday party.

unknown 44:08

Yeah. Happy birthday.

SPEAKER_03 44:10

Oh god. No, it was she also just like the look of Angelica is so frightening, and the way that she's just staring down, obviously drenched, so, so fucking good. I thought that her kill was incredibly scary. It's a shame though that we do see it in the trailer, but I think that the few times where we get a kill in the trailer, there's very few times where we can actually still feel the weight and the impact in the movie. This is one of those where I still felt like, oh shit. You know, just because I knew it was gonna happen, it didn't take away from how like stunned I was. Another one that I think was great, another homage, is of course the father in the beginning at the very beginning with the pole, which was so fucking weird because that man, the back of his head was full on split. And Father Brennan stared right at that thing and didn't have a horrific like he wasn't horrified in his face. And that's where I think they kind of fucked up a little bit. If I noticed clear as day that someone's back of their head was full on gone, I'd have a look different look on my face. Yeah, he just starts praying. Not only does he start praying, but he's still like talking to this guy, like you are not phased at all, not only by the fact that that guy's head is gone, or like rather the back of his head is gone, but he's also talking to you and moving, like none of that seems strange to you. Ugh, so eerie.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

There can be miracles when you believe.

SPEAKER_07 45:32

Yeah, I loved it though. Outside of maybe the reaction being a little bit off, I feel like uh how everything played out in that kill specifically was just really artsy, really cool. Just to see his expression so eerily, just like smirking and just nonchalant about what the fuck just happened as he dies. Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Yeah. I also want to say though, Sister Angelica absolutely looks like Mia Goth.

SPEAKER_07 45:57

A little bit, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

She was Mia Gothing the shit out of that scene.

SPEAKER_03 46:01

For sure. Anyone with bleached eyebrows is giving me a goth.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

Okay, that's also true. That's also very valid. Can I also say fuck Cardinal Lawrence though?

SPEAKER_03 46:09

Love the actor, fuck Cardinal Lawrence. Absolutely. I'm glad he got that right in the fucking neck. What a little bitch.

SPEAKER_07 46:17

Right in the jugular. I feel like we have to mention the baby that got switched out at the end because even though they don't show anything, we all know that poor infant baby child got its head smashed in. We all know that. That's part of the lore. We see it, and that's a fucked up kill. But we gotta point it out because we're here to talk about some crazy kills, and even though we don't see it, I don't think we wanna see it. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Yeah, you know what's fucked up though? They couldn't just sub in Damien. I feel like they could have made this easier on themselves. They didn't have to kill that baby, they could have just kept that baby at the hospital, sent him to an orphanage, sent that baby back to Rome. We could have done literally anything.

SPEAKER_07 46:56

Anything else?

SPEAKER_03 46:57

That would require a smidge of kindness and empathy that clearly they do not have.

SPEAKER_07 47:04

No, these people are fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_03 47:06

While we're talking about kills though, I kind of want to talk about, if we may, a kill that didn't happen and a debate a little bit surrounding it. So I mentioned how in the ending my friends and I we kind of get back and forth about, oh, she should have fucking killed Damien. You know what I mean? She said that she wanted to kill the baby and all that. Like, why wouldn't she in that moment? And it's like, guys, come on, remove yourself from the logic that you think would be required and remember that this is a prequel to a movie.

SPEAKER_07 47:37

On top of the fact that they literally can't kill Damien.

SPEAKER_03 47:40

They literally can't kill this baby. And I th and one of my friends in particular was trying to entertain a lot of different options as to how they could have gone about it, which I agree with some. I think it maybe is a harder sell to say that Margaret then has a lot of compassion for her son when she seconds ago obviously had the intentions of killing him, and even before then was very like adamant about having it gone from her body, but she was possessed, right? So to then have the baby, she was possessed. There's a lot of other things that can constitute why she would keep it alive. I don't know. I'm just curious about your guys' thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

Well, there's the very fact that she herself is also a child of the jackal, right? She's living proof that this kid might not actually grow up to be evil incarnate, like she's not a bad person.

SPEAKER_07 48:30

It is her baby still, technically.

SPEAKER_00 48:33

Yeah, there is the nature of it, but there's also the nurture of it. She spent this entire movie with Carlita trying to protect her or try to get her out of this situation. So, yes, the plan is to have a male heir to the devil's throne, whatever the fuck. However, in her heart, with the compassion that she has, being born from the jackal does not intrinsically make you evil. At least by what we see from her and Carlita. There is their nurture that's required from that. So the the questioning of that or the hesitation in that wasn't lost, at least for me. I thought it was a great moment, a great detail.

SPEAKER_08 49:14

It's also, I think, forecasted, right? We get a little bit of that at the beginning of the movie where she is praying that everyone will see that all life is worth living or worth keeping or protecting something like that. I forgot how she phrases it, but she's expressing a very like common thought, which is that we should not abort babies. But then when she's literally impregnated by force with the spawn of Satan, I think it hits it like I have the right to choose in this case what I am going to do here with the spawn of Satan.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

Again, Rosemary's baby.

SPEAKER_08 49:48

100%. It it felt just like it. It also felt like good omens because we have the same kind of storyline there.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

Okay. Crazy thought. Follow me down this delusional train. Imagine if she did kill Damien at some point, somehow. And then the omen gets set up as the princess bride, when he pours poison in the cup, swaps the cup, and then when he's not looking, the cup gets swapped back. And the whole time this cult is just raising this baby, thinking it's an evil ass baby, and it's just a normal ass fucking kid from Minnesota. You know what I mean? It almost paints it as like a dark comedy. And now I want to see a Tucker and Dale versus evil style retelling of the omen, but with Damien dead.

SPEAKER_03 50:30

And I'm bought in for sure. The gag is on the cult, the gag is on the church. I love that.

SPEAKER_07 50:37

That would be hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 50:38

Well, thank you for entertaining me down that road. I think I just needed to cure everyone's thoughts because I felt like, man, am I just seeing this from a, I don't know, just the perspective of like, guys, it's a prequel. Of course he's gotta live. Meh meh meh. You know? Thank you for that. And I do want to say though, even the shot of her holding the baby and attempting to kill him was kind of sick. Really, the the whole ending, there's so many great production elements and stills and whatnot from this film. It's absolutely insane. We could probably that alone we could probably go off for another hour. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 51:09

1000%. This movie is beautiful to look at, even it's in its most disgusting moments. And I'm sure we're gonna talk about the birth scene. And I'm not talking about her giving birth to Damien. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the demonic hand coming out of that woman's vagina. That was fucked up. And listen, I get it. I've been in delivery rooms, I've helped deliver a baby. I was also there when my sister gave birth to my nephew. It's nothing that I haven't seen, but there's something so specific. Just seeing a hand come out of a vagina that it's just it's just it's uncomfortable. I hate it. It was disgusting.

SPEAKER_07 51:46

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 51:47

However, the quality of those effects, absolutely incredible. This is a movie that again you're dancing with it being in the 70s. If you don't nail every facet of this, this is modern cinema set in the 70s. That could have felt very disconnected and very disjointed, but they nailed it. Right. No pun intended.

SPEAKER_03 52:06

And even with the costumes for the children, since you bring up that it they nailed the look of the 70s, the costumes for the children is really 50s and 60s, and you wouldn't even really like notice. It's so fitting, it just works so fucking well. Everything about the setting of the 70s, the music, the lighting, everything. It just goes so, so well. I also really appreciate Margaret's look in general. I I was doing a little bit of reading, and the costume designer was inspired by YSL in the 70s, which is so interesting because I feel like that as a fashion brand is like very elegant, like certain darts of black, they're kind of like Balenciaga, but in a refined way. And then when I watched this again, seeing that from that perspective, like looking at her costumes, I was like, you know, she does kind of look very flowy while still looking very refined. Even in her outfit where she's um going crazy when the riots start, yeah. She's just like flowing everywhere, her clothes are going everywhere. You can't take your eyes off of her. Something about it, it's just not only the way that Nell Tiger Fried depicts that scene, but her clothes as well, and everything about the look is very particular.

SPEAKER_07 53:18

For me, it's it's all of these things, but it's also, man, the cinematography in this movie is just off the fucking walls. There's one shot that comes to mind immediately. It's just the shot of Sister Angelica coming down the stairs, and there's just something about the angles and the camera is shooting from and the way it gets the shape of the stairs. It's just a very captivating shot and very thoughtful shots and placements that just look really, really cool. There's the sound design we talked about is just fucking off the walls. And then I think what they do with some of the imagery. What they do with some of the imagery in this movie is really interesting. Like they have this reoccurring spider imagery that keeps coming up. We actually see a spider crawling, right? But then we also see like those shots of like when Margaret is laying in bed and her hair is all in this perfect, almost spider-like web. It just these really intentional inserts of imagery throughout the movie that I just think were really well done and well and just well placed.

SPEAKER_08 54:17

There's so much good there to dig into as well. I mean, if you go into the cinematography here, you have to do a couple things, or I should say three things really well, right? You have to have good lighting, you have to frame well, and you have to have some good movement. And they just nailed it almost in every single shot that they had. The lighting was great, the way they framed the shots was just to die for. But the movement, I think, is the thing that that impressed me the most because they were able to match that to the pacing of the movie. And even the pacing of the scenes within the movie, they just took their time. And there were some incredible pans that I think some people might be bored with. Other people might be like, hurry up and get to it already. And I was just sitting here, like, let me soak this in. When we are panning over to a dark corner, talk about lighting, a dark corner, and we're seeing the habit just hanging on the wall and then realize it's a person, like, holy cow, that was so effective. And it didn't have to be a jump scare for it to be effective. It just had to be subtle enough to take its time and then catch you by surprise. And that's just like one example of all the good stuff that they absolutely executed with perfection, I'd say 90% of the time. I would have preferred more wide shots. I think movies set in like the 60s or movies filmed, I should say, in the 60s and 70s, typically I think use those a little bit more than we do now. We definitely get more close-ups these days. But if you go back and watch the Omen, I think you're gonna find that this is actually pretty similar in in terms of how they like use the different types of shots. But I think it would have helped with setting it in 1971 more than it seems, and it's almost there. They did a really good job. The only thing they could have done differently is honestly shoot it on film, and that would have been i whether or not they did, I don't think it would have been worth the added expense because if they didn't, they were able to achieve such a good look without doing that.

SPEAKER_03 56:09

Sure, that's true, but man, this thing on film would have been fire. That's for sure. God, that would have been so good.

SPEAKER_00 56:15

They could have really pulled the Ty West. Oh, the Ty West.

SPEAKER_03 56:18

Oof, and he would have lived for it. I want to say, so back to what you mentioned, Sean, the scene with Angelica, that's where I saw the Eyes Without a Face reference. Because in in that film, there's a particular moment where she's going actually up the stairs, she's walking around her house, and it reminded me a lot of what Angelica was doing, just the positioning of it. So I feel like in general, a lot of the cinematography is where you're gonna see all of these references and homages to all of the fucking films that I mentioned, the slew of them, right? Even going back to the demon hand coming out of the vagina, of course. We've got the woman, she looks straight at Margaret and is smiling. And that's like the sinister smile and the way that she's laughing, that was the smile reference. And it's of course, and and of course, because she's smiling, but no, I'm talking smile, is it's like the way that they frame the composition of the shot to really make you feel uncomfortable with that fucking smile. That's what that reminded me of. There's obviously also right after Angelica's kill, we have the glorious shot of Margaret going down that alleyway, and it's the exorcist, ladies and gentlemen. It's the fucking exorcist. Oh, so fucking good. Ah, I love it. But more importantly, it's a particular scene. Again, obviously, also the production of it all, but my favorite scene is a reference to one of my favorite movies. I already know, and that is Zolowski's possession.

SPEAKER_05 57:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 57:50

That entire possession scene, I couldn't even believe my eyes when I saw it in theaters. I almost launched myself off the chair, was like kneeling on the ground almost, okay. Sticky floor and all, okay. I was like, holy shit, she didn't do it, and she did. And she did.

SPEAKER_07 58:09

She fucking did it.

SPEAKER_03 58:10

So what's even oh my god, I could geek the fuck out about it. That what's even better about that entire scene is that Nell Tiger Free, because of course she's absolutely nuts, she filmed that entire scene cold, not rehearsed, not even choreographed. That was the first take. They they did it twice for good measure, but that was the first take.

SPEAKER_07 58:30

The first take. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 58:32

That she did it, and everyone was so unnerved by that scene. They were like, Oh, holy hell! Couldn't even believe that she did it, that she nailed it. It was iconic, it's incredible. Yeah, it's terrifying. And again, that particular scene in possession is considered one of the most horrific scenes in horror ever in horror history.

SPEAKER_06 58:52

100%.

SPEAKER_03 58:53

And what I love about it, last little cherry on top, I love the irony that Sam Neil, who becomes Damien in the omen three, is basically the main character in possession.

SPEAKER_07 59:03

We love that little homage as well. Oh, look at that little connection. Didn't even think about that.

SPEAKER_03 59:09

Oh, I sure did. And I was giggling and I was like, God damn, I love this director.

SPEAKER_07 59:13

That's great.

SPEAKER_03 59:14

She's doing it for me. I love it.

SPEAKER_07 59:16

It's crazy because when you have the birthing scene, right, which is just a very intense scene, it's really, when you think about it, not the most confronting scene because this scene of Margaret convulsing and being taken over as she's like being like further into the pregnancy or whatever, and she loses control of her body and she has the spasms and stuff, like that is arguably probably the most confronting scene in the entire film. And to think that she did do that in one take, I didn't know that, but that's absolutely phenomenal. Incredible job for sure. I did read that the direction they gave to Nell Tiger Free for that scene was just like whispering into her ear saying, scare the shit out of them, Nell, and that was it. And then that ensued. So just a little motivation, just a little push.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:07

Just a little push, and she sure as fuck bit it.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:09

That delivery was absolutely insane. I think acting-wise, I know horror movies don't win a lot of awards, but who gives a crap, right? We can all recognize when when somebody's doing a seller job on screen, and that is just phenomenal. My favorite scene also deals with some good acting, but it also deals with just, again, good storytelling and use of the medium. And that's when we're splitting between Luce's Vow ceremony and Margaret down in the basement finding the files. That split was done also masterfully, like going back and forth. It was building tension. Somehow, nuns prostrating themselves was shown in a creepy way to drum up the tension. Excuse me. That's one of the least exciting things. They're just laying there. But somehow that and the in their prayer, it's just like getting you on edge while she's making this big discovery down in the dark, and that on its own could have been a great scene without being spiced together. But the two of them together, holy cow, it just added like so much action to the movie without having to have action.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:09

Yeah, it's a great juxtaposition. It's very much as above so below, just with those words in themselves. It's the illusion of what we have going on, but what's really lying beneath the surface, it's great.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:22

Yeah, I think this film also has some really good, like we're talking about arguably the best scenes in the in the movie, but there's some things that this film does that kind of gives you that traditional kind of horror feel, right? There's a couple that I'm thinking of. There's one, the scene where Margaret's kind of looking through the place at night. We get the whole like dark ambiance with the just the lantern lighting the way, and it's just a very dark hallway. It looks great, it's creepy, it sets the mood, and then we get a shot of like her eye peering through the crack in the door to see the girl being strapped down, and then we get that nun peeking around the corner with that creepy little laugh that turns into a frown and crying. Like everything about that is just genuinely creepy, and very that brings you into like I think more of the traditional kind of horror that you expect to see in films, in horror films. But my favorite of the two that I want to bring up is the scene where Margaret is praying in her new room and overhears some weird shit at the door around her, right? And we get the moment, and we've had this in other films, right? But it's it just if you do it right, it's super effective. And we get that moment where she sees the nun uniform hanging against the wall and the drapes are blowing in the breeze, and all of a sudden it's just like this creepy ass old nun making some weird noise and then it's gone. Super effective. It's like the hairs raising on the back of your neck, goosebumps kind of shit for just that brief moment, and it's just and it didn't need to be a jump scare, and it was fantastic.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:54

I was curious if she was actually hearing them talk about somebody there, or if she was just having like trauma memories of her own childhood, or if it was both.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:04

It was giving trauma memory, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:06

Yeah, trauma is what it was giving, but yeah, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:09

Damn, this whole movie's just fucking trauma after trauma after trauma for her. Bless. Listen, you all have identified some absolutely stellar scenes, and there are so many more that are really great in this movie, but I want to give my favorite scene to a little bit of bullshit, and it's not a bad scene, it's not a dumb scene, but the reason why it's my favorite scene is dumb bullshit, and it's the C-section, it's the delivery of the twins, it's Luke and Leia being born. Specifically, it's because they turned, they said, We have him, and all in my mind I could hear was, ladies and gentlemen, we got him. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:47

Yeah, same.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:48

And also, it makes perfect sense, and this is where we actually really get into a lot of the characters in this movie and and what my bigger gripes are. It makes absolutely perfect sense that Christ would be a Capricorn and yet the Antichrist would be a Gemini.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:04

You know.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:04

Sorry, Mac.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:05

We could be both the Antichrist and Christ at the same time. Is that what they're trying to say?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:10

No, no, no, no. Okay, just the bad ones, just the bad ones. That scene in particular, absolutely chilling. It's one of those where we have the exploration of how she's been violated in so many different ways, and this moment is just continued added insult to injury. And oh man, we get that, and it really sets off the rest of the climax with the third act, and I absolutely loved it. I want to reveal though, my problem with this movie.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:41

I cannot watch again these two back to back because what the fuck, Father Brennan, you are inconsistent, it's a pain in my ass. I hadn't seen again the original omen in so long, but you don't go from Father Brennan, the excellent and effective communicator in this movie, to the man that we get at the beginning of the omen in 1976.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:06

Uh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:07

And it's just a span of what five years? You just don't do it. And that's my only gripe with the characters in this movie. Kills me.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:17

Okay. Yeah, maybe it's been, yeah, it's been a long time since I've seen the original omen, so I'm kind of uh excited to re-watch it again and see exactly what you're correlating here because okay, I'm starting to see what you're saying now.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:31

It's literally it. Like you can change the details, that's fine. You can make very intentional choices, but it feels like this movie tried so hard and was so successful in building something that leads perfectly into the next movie, and then you have this man, he could have just been any other fucking priest. He didn't have to be Father Brennan, he could have just been a different father Brennan, he could have been anybody, right? But you get the same character, and he feels like completely different people.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:58

I did the similar. Watch as you did, Chris, where when I went to see it in theaters, I then went home and I saw 1976. And I remember us recently talking about that, where it was like, damn, Brennan definitely acts a little different. And I think that there was certainly an opportunity in terms of character writing where he could have been written more seamlessly, especially since the time gap is only five years. I mean, I'm sure to some extent the reality that you failed or and whatnot maybe weighs it on you. But this is where I think they should have removed that part of the ending where he goes to Margaret and says, Oh, by the way, they're still looking for you or whatever. Like, just remove that whole bit so that it doesn't give us more in terms of what Brennan should have been like closer to 1976. You know what I mean? Or just in general. I think we like we already know, right? We already know that's Damien. We don't need to do the whole MCU of it all, but yeah, he's just not necessarily written the same way. Um, I I don't not necessarily have a full-on problem with him, but I think it could have just been a smidge better. Just a smidge. The discovery of Margaret being the other child of this jackal isn't necessarily like a big shock, unfortunately. I found that to be maybe predictable, but had zero problems with it. When you evidently see the parallels between Margaret and Carlita, you automatically think, like, oh, probably because you also have something to do with this, right? Or was that just me? I don't know. I I felt like it might have been pretty evident right off the bat.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:35

I feel like it tracks, but I feel like it was well protected throughout the movie. I didn't feel like it was one of those that are sure so blatantly obvious in the way that we had something recently in dead silence. We're like, okay, the second you see this guy on screen, you know he's been dead the whole time. Yeah, yeah. It didn't feel like that. But what did trip me up is come on, Margaret, how the fuck do you go your entire life with this mark and never notice that you have these grooves on your head? Because it did not look like a pigmentation thing, it looked like depth, it looked like there was ridges on those sixes.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:09

Oh, absolutely. It tells me that she doesn't double shampoo. It tells me that who is watching, who is really getting into your scalp, not you.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:16

Ruffles have ridges.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:17

I'm just saying, you would have probably noticed by now. You had to have noticed by now. But speaking of that six, six, six mark, there's a brief moment earlier when Sister Angelica's like peeking out behind the wall after she sees Carlita tied up, and she's got the six six mark on her cheek. Obviously, Angelica isn't one, but I don't know. I I guess I say all of that to say that I didn't even realize that was there on my first watch. And I think that's already a a hint to us as viewers to be like, okay, that's what it should look like before you actually see what it should look like. I I I guess I didn't catch that on the first go.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:52

I wanted to go back to the idea that it was not surprising that she was a a child of Satan because in the beginning of the movie when Father Harris is presenting the photograph, do they not say something about she could be 16 or 17 by now?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:06

They say that she could be a teenager by now, yeah. Which again, how does that make sense in terms of her? Because she's obviously much older. I mean, has to be. Well, they're yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:16

It makes sense because that first scene is in the past. And so to me, when that happened, and then we see a 12-year-old, I was like, nah, not I'm not buying it. And so the more we learn about Margaret and the more we see her on screen, I was like, when's it gonna when's the other shoe gonna drop? It's gotta be. Plus, they're also I was hoping, like, they're not gonna show a 12-year-old birthing Damien.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:35

God, I mean, I wouldn't put it past him.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:38

But the the fact that it was her wasn't surprising to me, but the fact that they delivered on the whole like birthing sequence in the way that they did was the part that was like, okay, you made it worth it. You made it worth the fact that like a surprise was not super surprising.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:53

Absolutely. Now, one surprise that I thought was pretty delightful is Luce, her roommate. I think that on the second watch, when she's telling the story of what she believed to be at the time of her telling the story, I I'm what I'm talking about is more so like Margaret, right? Margaret's perspective, what she believed to be a story of Luce encountering God, right? On the second watch, I see that scene and I'm like, oh shit, she's really talking about not like God, but like the devil, really. You know what I mean? At least that's how I depicted it. It's how the devil is speaking to her and how she's overcome with like love and is enamored by this. It was performed so well, but on a second watch, when you see that, now knowing that she's a part of this whole thing, it's like, oh, it's different.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:41

Yeah, you know, look up Betrayal in the dictionary. You're gonna find a picture of Luz. I'm really uh disappointed, honestly. And uh you're the chosen one, ma'am. You were the chosen one, and yet here we are reminding Margaret that she can't have a single fucking good thing in this entire world.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:58

She really can't. She really can't. And more so, I mean, not even a a good man, because he also was in on it. Again, once again, R.I.P. Paolo, he was really fine. He was a good looking dude. It's a shame. It's a shame. I also, speaking of Margaret, last little funny tidbit, since you mentioned the whole thing of like, oh, ladies and gentlemen, we got him. My actual little quote thing that I was thinking of is when the students are telling her that she's a farfala, like she's a butterfly and that she deserves to fly.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:28

For me, I was thinking of that quote from the other guys when he goes, I'm a peacock, you gotta let me fly.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:34

Oh, I'm a peacock, you gotta let me fly. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:39

I was crying, I was crying of laughter the second watch because I'm like, God damn it, Mark Wahlberg. Okay. I already had your brother in death silence. I can't have you permeate freaking first omen.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:51

So good. Listen, we're getting deep with some of these characters, and I was just here geeking out that we got Thomas and Victor from Underworld in this movie. You know what I mean? Like they're both elder fuckers in this movie, they're both elder fuckers in Underworld. They're just a little duo, you know, and it was good to see them. It was good to see him.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:09

Damn, you know, we've referenced Underworld a few times this year. Maybe it's is it time for a reason why?

SPEAKER_07 1:12:14

Is it a sign? A sign?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:16

Is it a sign? I think so.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:18

Nice, nice. No, but in all honesty, I mean, we've already talked most of this episode about Nell Tiger Free, so I don't know how much more we can really dive into that. But what I am curious about is with this new character, right? The fact that we have this sister, what happens with this character? We could literally get a side story to the omen about this fucking spawn of whatever, and figure, what do we go from there? How does it play into future movies in the franchise?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:48

We got our little Renezme.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:50

A little Renezme, yeah. It's just gonna be really interesting to see. It just opens that door to a sequel to this, which is just hard to believe because it's a prequel to the omen, so it gets really murky here, but there are possibilities and different avenues to go down that make it interesting to think of what they could do next.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:10

I agree. It's like Mac was saying, it's you can do a little spin-off moment, but I'm a little worried about it. This is the part where I'm like, God, this was so good. Don't sell out to the studios. Take the win, take the W that Disney gave you, but don't take it any further because I don't know how much more creative liberty they're gonna give you outside of the hand coming out of the vagina the first go-round. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:34

Yeah. It's gonna give has been hotel where we're gonna get the princess of hell, except she's actually a really good person and she's just a little sweetheart. That's where the shit's gonna fucking go. She's gonna be the next hero.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:46

I truly hope that they don't take this in a superhero direction. When we watched The Nun 2, there were some parts of that felt really good, kind of like this, and then there was the rest of it that went in a very different direction. And I actually I give that positive marks, but I was thinking of that while we were watching this because I think they attempted many of the same things, but this one actually landed the plane and succeeded on those things. And having the daughter hidden away, it's giving me Hannah, which I'm here for. But I know in the other sequels, there's he's got kids, Damien. I kind of liked that this is like a another character. This is why I'm thinking though, there has to be another sequel to this prequel because we've got five years in between. There's a lot they could do in that five-year span. Smack dab in the middle. They could do one every year and have five movies every single year now, but I hope they don't. But I think they could make one sequel to this prequel work. Yeah. I think it would, I think it would be okay. Focus in on her maybe a little bit. Don't bring the two together. We don't need to have that moment in in Obi-Wan where he sees and talks to Luke. Come on, I don't need it. But yeah, focus in on a different character and and I would be okay with it.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:54

And since we're talking about this whole sequel, prequel of it all, that's kind of what is, I guess, the worst part for me, or rather, it's tied between not only the the timing of the release and the competition that it had with Immaculate, but it is that last part of the ending being a little too cliche and where I get a little confused in terms of where this could go because at the time that he comes back, obviously she's the the sister has grown up a little bit, you know. So there's probably been five years past since, or maybe a little bit more since the birth of the twins. But then you've got a little bit more of a time gap, I would imagine, until 1976. The ultimate, like what's gonna happen with all that? And I feel like it would be probably best if they had removed that scene so that whatever comes afterwards could have been a little bit more free with the writing of it all. Now they would have to go off of that small bit that could have been removed, or quite frankly, probably an end credit. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_07 1:15:54

It's true. Unless they were already unless they already had intentions for something that they're not sharing with us, and that's the point of this, and we won't know until we know, I guess. But that's a very good point.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:05

I just feel like they would I just hope that they remember that they did that, and that's what I'm scared about, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:16:11

Yeah, don't fuck it up.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:13

Don't fuck it up, because most times when they do those little end credit things, when you get to the sequel, they forget all about that shit.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:20

They're like, Let me do my own thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:22

They forget, they forget what they did. Exactly. A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:26

I feel you.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:26

Well, damn. You know, speaking of little things though, I want to point out what I thought was the absolute worst part of this movie. The fact that she actually thought those scanophiles were even remotely concealed beneath that dish rag. I also thought the same. What the fuck was that?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:42

I thought the same, which by the way, continuity problem because in the next scene they are wrapped around correctly.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:50

And then a second later, it's back to its bullshit of not being Yeah, it was absolutely terrible. The most jarring thing, and I'm like, girl, you're smarter than this. You are smarter than this. What the fuck are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:00

Margaret, have a tighter grip on that dish towel, girl.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:02

You got a grip on this whole conspiracy, but you can't fucking hold on to the dish.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:06

Let's be very real right now. No one's gonna know what the fuck you're grabbing. No plate looks like that. What are you grabbing, woman? Obviously, it's files.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:13

Receipts. Yeah, it's files for sure. And the towel makes it more suspicious, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:18

Very, very sus.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:21

So sus.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:22

You fucked yourself on that one.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:24

It's hard to find worse parts of this movie. So I'm gonna find I'm gonna list a part that was not my favorite that you all loved, and that was the hand birthing scene. That whole scene was just it was oh man, it makes you squirm. It's a lot. And every every time we we look away and then we come back, it's showing more and more, and you're like, oh, they're gonna show it. They're gonna show way too much. They took it there, and they took it there, and it's amazing, but at the same time, I was like, gosh, I could have gone without well, having to see that I would have been okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:55

And the demon hand had stiletto nails, all right?

SPEAKER_07 1:17:59

Yeah sharp motherfucker, sharp from within. Holy shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:02

From within.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:03

Goodness. Well, honestly, I think the worst part of this movie is the fact that it came out right after Immaculate. And I'll tell you why. I'll tell you right now, it's better than Immaculate. I'm not gonna say if Immaculate is bad or good as a movie on its own, but if you're comparing the two, this is the winner by far. But whatever. I I just think that it's the worst part because the fact that people are probably, and I think you've alluded to it already, Binx, at the start of this conversation. It's just that people are probably just tired of this story, and it just sucks that this one came out after Immaculate, because by the time you get through, you know, watching the nun earlier on last year, and then going into uh Immaculate if you did catch that in theaters and what have you, and then you see that the first omen is a very similar setting, and you're like, oh man, I already saw this. Do I need to see it? I'm probably just gonna put this on a shelf. You're doing yourself a disservice. Like you should definitely watch this film. And if you haven't watched either of them, I'll choose for you. Just watch this film.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:06

I'm gonna second that because I've seen both, and I'm gonna also put a stamp on that statement. And I don't want to beat a dead horse on it, but I really do feel strongly about how unfortunate this was in terms of timing and release of these films. I understand that both of them were literally written at the time of Roe v. Wade. So I of course understand that timing-wise in terms of studios and wanting to push it out, it's gonna probably fall around the same year. The thing is, even if you had done Immaculate earlier in the spring and waited for the first omen to literally let me hire me, bro, hire me on the marketing team, put this on out on June 6th. That would have been great, obviously. Duh. I just feel like even with a little bit more of a of a gap, guys. I think that maybe more people would have been inclined to watch it, but we're talking weeks difference practically.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:55

And I know so many of my friends were like, I'm tired of the none of it all. And what sucks even more so is that people that don't really consume horror that much obviously maybe just went to see this film because they wanted the thrill and it was a big blockbuster. They just see it at superficial level. And I'm this is not an audience, right? What I'm saying is they just see none. They're not seeing the bigger picture, they're not seeing the messaging, they're not getting the homages, nothing. And I think that if maybe they weren't so tired of nun films, they would have enjoyed this film a lot more.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:26

Well, listen, this movie is great. I'm not debating that, but I'm pretty done with nuns for a little while. I do need to wait a long time before watching this again, specifically because I saw it once in theaters again now for this episode. Uh, but it's especially now knowing what it feels like to watch this back to back with the Omen, I need maybe a good year, tops, before I can at the very soonest, maybe a year before I think I can really dig back into this. Some of the shit is just way too traumatic to revisit casually.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:57

And that's what I mean. Even you, Chris, you're over the fucking nuns of it all. So that's what's so frustrating about this entire thing. It boils my blood. I think that I'm going to save this film a little bit. Ideally, I will do my own marketing, I guess, and I'm just gonna be watching it every June 6th, that's for sure. But I think in 2024, if someone came to me and said that they wanted to feel disturbed, they wanted to learn more about classic horror films, they still wanted like a modern blockbuster feel. This is the film I'm gonna recommend to them. And I would sit down and watch them see it because I want to see people's reactions to the disturbing scenes for sure.

SPEAKER_08 1:21:37

Yeah, that'd be a fun context for re-watching this. I I don't know that I could handle another rewatch anytime soon either. Maybe for loose, maybe just for loose, but for the rest of it, it's a lot and it sticks with you. It lingers. And I think this is something where eventually we have to get to all of the sequels. We we have so many to choose from, right? We have five other movies, is that right, that we eventually are going to watch? And we're gonna take care of two of them probably pretty quickly. But yeah, what does this look like in the context of all of those other movies? Is it gonna change our enjoyment level of all the rest of them? Because I think it will. Even the actual OG Omen, I think this is going to color our viewing of it. So yeah, I'm I'm curious how it's gonna play with all the others.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:16

That's an interesting take. I didn't think about that, but maybe possibly. I think you know, this movie for sure. I think it has definite re-watchability. I think there are a ton of nods and Easter eggs to discover. I I think going into this second watch now, I was like, man, I I can't believe I didn't prep for this show, like for the podcast while watching this for the first time. I feel like I just watched this a couple weeks ago or what have you, and now here I am watching it again. And then I watched it again a second time, and I kind of want to watch it a third time, and I don't feel like I want to wait a whole year, so I might watch it a lot sooner than a year, which I think is cool. I think it does have a great story to it, and I think it it has just has a lot to enjoy. It's like one of those rare films that a lot of the different aspects of the film just fired on all cylinders, and it was just an enjoyable watch. So I think at some point rather soon I might watch this one again.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:15

Well, that has been just an absolutely glowing recommendation, and honestly, I can think of no better recommendation to give our audience than the fact that there you have it, the first omen from 2024 has earned an official Universal Slash.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:29

Now we certainly had a robust discussion here, but the conversation about this movie does not end here by any means.com slash hacker slash to enjoy more of the show with early access, extended episodes, bonus content, and live shows.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:56

We'll see you next time, folks. And remember, belief is power.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:00

You create something to fear.