Editorials
10 Terrific A24 Titles to Watch Before ‘Hereditary’!
A24 has come to be a household name that you can trust. Whether it be The Florida Project, First Reformed, American Honey, 20th Century Women, or Moonlight, if you’re a fan of indie genre film and you’ve fallen in love with a movie that came out within the last ten years, there’s a good chance that A24 released it. They have a habit of diving into the world of myriad movie gems and picking stellar film after stellar film to show the world – the epitome of finding the needle in the haystack. And they make it look easy.
Up next from this ridiculously successful production company is the gut-punching Hereditary from first-timer Ari Aster, which feels like less of a movie and more of a roller coaster that dares you to keep watching. It’s not for everyone, but you will truly be missing out if you decide to skip this one on the basis of it being too much to take. Opening up the film with a funeral and only growing bleaker as the feature drags on, this horrific take on a family cursed with tragedy is just as meticulous and beautifully composed as it is guttural and unnerving. It might just be the best movie A24 has ever had their hands on, which is why it comes as no surprise that the entertainment company has already gone into negotiations with Aster for his next movie, tentatively titled Midsommer.
In the meantime, while you’re waiting for Hereditary to boggle your mind and rip your heart out of your chest, there’s plenty of other worthy A24 titles to feast your eyes on. Read on, and get these great gems in your eyeballs, before you cover them with your hands in a darkened theater for Aster’s directorial debut on June 8th.
EX MACHINA
Known previously for writing 28 Days Later and Dredd, Alex Garland’s directorial debut tells the story of a tech-savvy young man named Caleb (Domhall Gleeson) who wins a competition at his Google-esque company to spend the weekend away at his CEO’s exclusive estate, to work on a secret project with the elusive Nathan (Oscar Isaac). From the outside looking in, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime – Caleb gets to meet the man who put this entire mega-successful search engine into motion, Nathan reveals his next big project to the young up-and-comer, and Caleb experiences his first ever interaction with a real, live artificial intelligence being named Ava (Alicia Vikander). But all is not as it seems. Little does he know, Caleb is interacting with a prisoner, and Ava is not the first woman made within these walls with the intention of becoming Nathan’s love slave – and she won’t be the last. Built to fulfill sci-fi fantasy thrills and brimming with social commentary, Ex Machina is a highly stylized, wholly inventive look at what makes us human, and calls into question the methods with which we make scientific advancements in the name of research.
GOOD TIME
Robert Pattison can act! Who knew? And all it took to bring out those chops was a modern day, Paul Schrader-esque, heist-gone-wrong, race-against-time thriller like Good Time to show us what he can do. Pattinson may have gotten his start in melodramatic made-for-tween vampire romance movies, but where he really shines is as a down-on-his-luck smooth-talking criminal who uses his mouth and his quick wit to maneuver himself out of every sticky situation and into the next. Written and directed by the Safdie Brothers, Good Time is not to be missed – a true white-knuckling adrenaline-fueled fiery ride from start to finish. Movies as tense as this one are hard to come by.
THE WITCH
Back in the 1600s, in the time of early Protestant settlers being brought over to the New World, people used to believe that the woods were full of sin – for they were the only place untouched by man, and therefore, never cleansed with the purification of Christianity. Perhaps that’s why when William and Katherine lead their five children away from the busy colony and out into the barren wilderness, something reaches out from the trees and claims their youngest, Samuel, an unbaptized babe. Maybe that’s why their crops begin to fail, and the family begins to turn on one another. Maybe it was the woods that brought them all of this melancholy. Or maybe, it was the witch hidden within its hovel. Written and directed by first-timer Robert Eggers, this is simply an astonishing directorial debut. Taut, purposeful, and period accurate, this surreal New England nightmare is arguably the best movie A24 has released thus far, bringing with it an air of originality and uncompromised vision.
IT COMES AT NIGHT
Despite the madness, Sarah and Paul live peaceful lives. The world outside may be falling apart, but this couple, along with their son Travis, have mostly held it together during the end times – mostly. It seems like the oxygen masks and taped-shut doors and cautionary, aloof lifestyle has kept them safe from the sickness stretching itself across the globe thus far — but suddenly, outsiders arrive. A shy family of three has come to join their little hideaway in the woods. Although they seem good-hearted at first, as time goes on and suspicions arise, paranoia begins to creep into every corner of this little house, choking and suffocating the inhabitants within – until somebody snaps, and chaos ensues. Brilliantly directed by Krisha filmmaker Trey Edward Shultz, this hypnotic portrait of two families unraveling in the face of adversity is a haunting meditation on how sickness can turn good people into monsters.
GREEN ROOM
They may have been a couple of gas stealing, record blaring, anti-establishment types, but this little punk band didn’t deserve a fate like this. Donning themselves ‘The Ain’t Rights’, Pat (Anton Yelchin), Sam (Alia Shawkat), Reece (Joe Cole), and Tiger (Callum Turner) find themselves trapped within the confines of an ever-shrinking green room after they witness a murder in a Nazi-owned nightclub. Now, with nowhere left to turn and their bandmates being brutally offed one by one, these kids must find a way out of this skinhead infected territory – lest they want this to truly become their final tour. The follow-up to his indie sensation Blue Ruin, Jeremy Saulnier proves himself as a visionary filmmaker with Green Room, his surprisingly timely foray into the world of extreme nationalism, using the power of film to prove that the power of rock and roll can defeat nearly any evil, even the kind that stems from racist bigotry.
THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER
After his father passes expectantly on the operating table, Martin clings to surgeon Steven Murphy – a father figure to fill the void growing within his soul. Although it starts small, with little guilt-ridden gifts passed from Steven to Martin, and the occasional dinner date here and there, eventually, Martin begins to latch onto the Murphy family, and grows a little too close for comfort. Like a festering tumor, Martin inserts himself into the Murphy’s daily lives, and spreads his sickness from within – a child in pain turned parasite. Before they know it, the whole family has seemingly fallen prey to some sort of invisible sorcery, as paralysis befalls each of them one by one, with no motivation in sight. This wicked tale of guilt and blame and revenge not only plays as a horrible nightmare, but also provides a sobering look at human behavior, and our natural tendency to detach ourselves from any unwanted emotions to the extent of rendering ourselves sociopathic. Coming off hot from the success of The Lobster and back with his new twisted The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Yorgos Lanthimos is a name every cinephile should know.
ENEMY
Have you ever woken up out of a dream and gone straight into another one? Remember that strange, eerie feeling of being trapped within some surreal place that you couldn’t quite shake yourself from? Think about that hazy hallucination and you’ll feel a little bit of what it’s like to watch Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy for the very first time. Look into this one as little as possible before you see it for guaranteed maximum suspense and whimsical wonder. No trailers, no synopsis – just dive in.
SWISS ARMY MAN
It takes a special kind of filmmaker to take a story about a man befriending a corpse on the beach and turn it into an endearing light-hearted comedy about love and relationships and life and loss, but somehow, with their powers combined, Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert manage to pull it off. Because of its somewhat silly premise is instigated to handle somewhat serious subject matter, the result is a movie with a perspective of enjoying and appreciating life, while also allowing the leeway to not take it all so seriously. This is one you’ve got to see, if for no other reason than to watch Paul Dano ride a lifeless, farting Daniel Radcliffe across the ocean like a gas-powered dolphin straight into the sunset.
SPRING BREAKERS
This is an A24 release that gets a lot of unwarranted hate from film critics and cinema connoisseurs alike, with most people claiming that it’s nothing but a shallow and vulgar display of young, good-looking girls in skimpy bikinis. Here’s the thing – in a way, they’re right. But at the same time, what’s so wrong with that? Film isn’t limited to narrow Ivy League points of view. It’s not always going to be family-friendly, and it’s not always there to make a statement, or to save the world from its own blind self-destruction, or to create a commentary about the current political climate. Film is an art, a media of expression, and sometimes, that just means watching hazy, neon-infused oiled skin bounce just right to the beat, a portrait of unhindered youth and freedom and the unexplainable high of doing what you’re not supposed to be doing while you’re away from home on spring break. Sometimes, heightened simplicity is just as beautiful as cutthroat commentary.
UNDER THE SKIN
An extraterrestrial falls to earth and inhabits the body of a beautiful young woman. Slowly learning how to be human, she then begins sweeping the Scottish countryside, preying on unlucky men with her newfound powers of seduction. It always goes the same way – she flirts, she whisks them away to her private little home, and then she literally sucks the life out of them. Sure, it’s an easy game at first – like taking candy from a baby, as they say – but being human comes at a price. Over time, it begins to take its toll on this otherworldly vixen. There are only so many men she can meet, seduce, and discard before she finally comes across one that puts butterflies in her belly, makes her heart skip a beat. Now, suddenly, capturing and killing isn’t so easy. Directed by Jonathan Glazer, this futuristic masterpiece begs the question of what it means to be a human being – and doesn’t necessarily reflect back our greatest traits.
Of the three films that make up the Diabolical Trinity of classic religious horror films—Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), and The Omen (1976)—The Omen is the most purely entertaining.
While Rosemary’s Baby digs into the societal shifts of the 60s and The Exorcist explores spiritual tensions between faith and doubt in an ever-shifting world, The Omen seems most interested in just telling a thrilling story. It achieves this by blending two major trends of the 1970s, the devil movie and the paranoid thriller, into one crackling adventure yarn. In the process, The Omen has sparked fear and curiosity about what could happen in the “end times” if such events are to occur.
After seeing The Exorcist, producer Harvey Bernhard contacted writer David Seltzer and said something along the lines of, “Hey, write me one of those.” Seltzer, having never read the Bible, thought it would be an interesting challenge, so, according to various interviews, he read the Bible and several commentaries in search of a story. Then he stumbled upon a passage in the book of Revelation, the image of a great Beast rising out of the sea, that sparked his imagination. In the commentaries, he found that the sea represented politics in some interpretations of the text, and he began building his story on that foundation.
Seltzer has told this story often, and I am inclined to believe him. However, from there, much of the theological-sounding lore of The Omen was created purely by Seltzer. Many of the ideas surrounding The Antichrist in the film appear to be drawn much more from the pop-eschatology sensation of the 1970s, The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsay, than any Biblical source.
Lindsay’s book was the bestselling nonfiction book of the 1970s and re-popularized views of the “last days” that had been dying along with fundamentalism for decades, namely Dispensationalism, Millennialism, and the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. In dispensationalism, history is broken into several epochs of time (or dispensations) that culminate in the return of Christ and his thousand-year (millennial) reign.
Before this return, a seven-year Tribulation will occur in which the Antichrist comes to power and persecutes all who oppose him, culminating in a battle between the forces of good and evil at the valley of Megiddo, usually called Armageddon. Of course, in this worldview, the true believers in Jesus will be lifted out, or raptured, before all this takes place. Since the publication and popularity of The Late Great Planet Earth, this has been the prominent belief in Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christian circles, though Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and mainline Protestant denominations largely reject it.
Lindsay also did something unique that had not been the case even in dispensationalist circles before him—he posited that the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948 started the countdown to Armageddon. Fans of the film will immediately realize where Seltzer ran with this idea in the first line of the poem created for the movie: “When the Jews return to Zion…”
Damien Thorn and the Creation of Horror’s “Innocent Villain”
Seltzer’s next inspiration focused on the idea of the Antichrist as a child, what he would call the film’s “innocent villain.” In watching The Omen, it is readily apparent that Damien Thorn (Harvey Stephens) does not really do anything evil beyond a bit of normal kid mischief. Even the moment in which Damien knocks Kathy Thorn (Lee Remick) over a second-floor railing can be read as an accident orchestrated by Damien’s diabolically connected nanny, Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw). The film takes this idea of the innocent villain a step further by casting Gregory Peck, best known for playing arguably the greatest father in film history, Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), as Damien’s earthly father, an element that greatly satisfied Seltzer.
The New Testament itself says very little about the Antichrist and certainly nothing about his childhood. In fact, the word antichrist is used twice (1 John 2:18 and 2 John 7 for the curious) and refers to groups of people, not a particular person. There is also a passage in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 in which the writer (usually attributed to Paul) discusses “The Man of Lawlessness” who will “exalt himself over everything that is called God” and “proclaim himself to be God.”
Then there is the Beast of Revelation chapter 13 with “seven heads and ten horns” that Seltzer latched onto, which has been interpreted in a multitude of ways over the centuries. Powerful people throughout history, from Charlemagne, various Popes during the Protestant Reformation era, Napoleon and Hitler, to modern politicians, including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, have all had the label placed on them by various circles. Even religious leaders like Billy Graham have not escaped being called the Antichrist.
Lindsay and modern dispensationalists are certain the Antichrist will be a 21st-century individual as they are equally certain that the Rapture, Tribulation, and return of Christ are imminent, likely within their lifetime. Many scholars and theologians, however, interpret these passages as symbolic representations of the Roman Empire and the first-century Caesars who persecuted, tortured, and murdered Christians and Jews who refused to submit to Imperial rule and worship them as gods. For example, that the Beast from the sea in Revelation has seven heads is symbolic of the famous seven mountains of Rome, with the 10 horns referring to rulers and magistrates of the Empire.
But this is all really of no matter to Seltzer and the story of The Omen. Instead of being concerned with any historical or theological accuracy, he instead built his own lore, which sends Robert Thorn and photographer Keith Jennings (David Warner) on a globetrotting investigation into the nature of the Antichrist and how to stop him. Some of this lore includes the child being born of a jackal, the reaction of animals, the protective cult that arises around Damien, the daggers of Megiddo, and maybe most interesting of all, the peculiar flaws in Jennings’s photographs that presage the ways certain individuals will die.
All these aspects are where the paranoid thrillers come in, as films like Blow Up (1966), Z (1969), The Conversation (1974), The Parallax View (1974), 3 Days of the Condor (1975), and All the President’s Men (1976) were all the rage at the time. Especially in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the idea of journalists (like Jennings) as ordinary heroes who could bring down the powerful, nefarious forces in the world was exactly what audiences craved. And what greater hidden evil force was there than the Devil? This is also why the device of the daggers of Megiddo is so important to a movie like this. If Damien is indeed the Antichrist, there must be a way to stop him, though in the Biblical text, the only power capable of destroying the Devil is God Himself.
The Mark of the Beast, 666, and the Film’s Most Famous Religious Symbolism
The piece of lore created for the movie with the most solid Biblical grounding is the Mark of the Beast. Revelation describes a mark on the forehead or hand of those who worship the Beast and his image. Again, this is symbolic language differentiating those who belong to the power of the Roman Empire and those who belong to Christ, who have the Mark of the Lamb. In Seltzer’s hands, the mark is very literal, a birthmark that is borne by not only the Antichrist but all his followers, meaning they are marked from before birth as belonging to Satan, and there is no escaping it. This is all rather distressing to the priest Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton), who betrays his mark by warning Thorn about Damien and pays the price by memorably being impaled by a spire that falls from a church steeple after being struck by lightning.
Why is the mark three sixes? Again, this is drawn from a passage in Revelation that states that the Beast can be identified by calculating his number. In Biblical scholarship, this is believed to be the sum of the name of a man transferred into Hebrew numerology, a practice in which each Hebrew letter also represents a number. Using this method, the number of the name Caesar Nero, which many believe to be the most logical choice, is six hundred sixty-six. In the film and elsewhere, this number is changed to three individual sixes. According to the film, this represents the Diabolical Trinity (a designation also unique to the film) made up of Satan, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. That Damien carries this unique birthmark under his hair convinces Robert that the child is the Antichrist, and it’s up to him to destroy him.
Part of what makes The Omen great is its ambiguity. Damien could be the Antichrist, or he could be at the center of a series of coincidences. Director Richard Donner stated in interviews that he believed Robert Thorn had gone insane by the end of the film, which, to Donner, is the only explanation for why Thorn would attempt to kill an innocent child. However, that enigmatic smile in the final shot suggests that Damien does embody a spirit of great evil. The sequels, however, all but erase this ambiguity.
In audiences, The Omen sparked a renewed interest in the concept of the Antichrist and the dispensationalist interpretation of the end times that continues to echo throughout the last five decades. Around the time of the film’s release, even Elvis Presley was photographed brandishing a paperback copy of Seltzer’s novelization. Dispensationalist authors like Hal Lindsay, Tim LaHaye, and John Hagee have made millions publishing books and giving lectures about the Antichrist and the end of the world.
The Legacy of The Omen, 50 Years Later
Though A Thief in the Night (1972) preceded The Omen in initial release, it gained quite a resurgence (along with the ability to create three sequels) in the wake of the popularity of The Omen and went on to scar the psyches of Evangelical children for decades. Hal Lindsay was also able to release a film version of The Late Great Planet Earth in 1978, complete with narration and a brief onscreen appearance from Orson Welles.
In the 1990s, the Left Behind series became a cultural phenomenon, spawning twelve books in the core series, a YA spinoff series, video games, and a movie series (2000-2005) starring Kirk Cameron. A bigger studio adaptation of the first book was released in 2014, starring Nicolas Cage. 20th Century Fox and The Omen got in on the renewed “end-of-the-world” vigor by releasing a remake of the original film on June 6, 2006. The franchise was revived once again in 2024 with The First Omen, which explores ideas of the Antichrist and the motivations of those in power in our current religious, social, and political context.
But despite all the sequels, spinoffs, rip-offs, remakes, and “end times” money grabs of the last 50 years, the original version of The Omen remains untouchable. Its greatest strength is that it seeks, first and foremost, to entertain. And it does so admirably.
After half a century, its influence can be felt in horror, the culture at large, and even in various faith circles. It is a testament to the power of story and film that, consciously or unconsciously, fans of The Omen and those who have never seen it alike are, to this very day, marked by the Beast.
You must be logged in to post a comment.