The First Omen (Stevenson 2024)
The First Omen is a long slow burn. It is beautifully constructed, well acted, and intellectually terrifying. If you can see this in a theater, please do!
There is lots more of our podcast! Please listen, review, subscribe, and tell your friends.

SPOILERS IN THIS EPISODE
Proxy (Parker 2013)
Inside (Bustillo & Maury 2007)
TOPIC INDEX – The First Omen  (Stevenson 2024) (times are approximate) 
0:30 – Introductions
5:00 – Film discussion begins
6:00 – Laura has submitted a short horror film to festivals!
11:00 – Spoilers begin
12:00 – opening scene as mise en abyme
14:00 – plot overview and discussion topics
20:00 – mothers and babies
25:00 – unethical aesthetics
28:30 – critique of the Catholic Church?
31:00 – 1960s social movements in Rome
38:00 – emotional experience and antichrist baby
41:00 – representation of difficult decisions
56:30 – grading the film using the Collective Nightmares Evolving Rubric of Social Responsibility
1:04:00 – outro
1:05:00 – Laura submitting to film festivals!!! and winning awards!!!
 
Related Episodes
Mandy (Cosmatos 2018)
Related Films
It is Fine! Everything is Fine (Brothers & Glover 2007)
In Fabric (Strickland 2018)
Credits
Edited and processed with Audacity. Free, cross-platform, open source, and awesome.
https://www.audacityteam.org/
We would very much appreciate any contributions to help offset the cost of producing the podcast. Thanks! paypal.me/collectivenightmares
Thanks for listening. Please let us know your thoughts.
• www.collectivenightmares.com
• IG: @collectivenightmares
• Marshall@collectivenightmares.com
• Laura@collectivenightmares.com
“Horror films are our collective nightmares.”
Episode 122
Keywords
horror, podcast, sociology, gender, bodies, male gaze, menstruation, period, mise en abyme, abortion, devil, children, pregnancy, incest, rape, sexual assault, cult, Church, Christianity, nunnery, convent, orphanage, misogyny, gaslighting, infanticide, prequel, motherhood, mothering, women, antichrist, infanticide