Before ‘The First Omen,’ Director Arkasha Stevenson Scared Us With This Horror Series

The Big Picture

• The
  Channel Zero
  show delves into mental health themes through characters experiencing schizophrenia with a unique horror twist.
• Both
  The First Omen
  and
  Channel Zero: Butcher’s Block
  explore the dangers of dangerous religious beliefs ingrained with cosmic horrors.
• Director Arkasha Stevenson’s horror projects,
  The First Omen
  and
  Channel Zero
  : Butcher’s Block, terrify audiences with artful and unsettling scares.

Now and then, there is a surprise entry to a horror franchise that can reinvigorate everything. This is what The First Omen does for an intense and terrifying prequel by director Arkasha Stevenson in her directorial debut. For fans clamoring for more of Stevenson’s horror style, back in 2018, she worked on SYFY Channel’s Channel Zero, the horror anthology series created by Nick Antosca, where each season loosely adapts a Creepypasta story. Stevenson was the director for the third season, “Butcher’s Block”, which shares many things in common with The First Omen. They are mental health troubles and dangerous religious beliefs, all while Stevenson scares viewers in surreal ways. Despite what they share, this chapter of Channel Zero stands apart from Stevenson’s devilish prequel thanks to the weirdness that is ingrained within the DNA of this horror anthology, where you will feel you’re stuck in a waking nightmare where there is no easy escape from.

What Is ‘Channel Zero’ “Butcher’s Block” About?

“Butcher’s Block” follows two sisters who relocate to the city of Garrett in their attempt to move on from a horrible incident that has left their family estranged. Alice (Olivia Luccardi) wants to forget the past and start a new job while looking after Zoe (Holland Roden), who’s dealing with the onset of schizophrenia. Their plan to heal together veers off course quickly. They hear stories about a neighborhood in their new city, Butcher’s Block, that has fallen into poverty and crime, where there is no help to find the people that have gone missing. It connects back to Peach’s Meats, an old factory run by the Peach family that stands abandoned, but it’s left behind a terrible legacy for Butcher’s Block.

The Peachs were said to have disappeared decades ago, but they haven’t gone far. They are a cannibal family that haunts this dilapidated neighborhood, searching for victims from the citizens that no one will miss. The epicenter is an overgrown park, where anyone who dares to walk into it might stumble upon a marble staircase that leads to a door. This mysterious sight is taken from the premise of the Creepypasta, “Search and Rescue Woods” by Kerry Hammond, before Channel Zero expands and changes the story for its own telling. The cast is excellent in Channel Zero, where they are either predators that feast on humans or those trying to stay alive during all the bloody mayhem.

Rutger Hauer Isn’t the Only One Who Plays a Fascinating Character

Easily, one of the most famous faces in Butcher’s Block is Rutger Hauer, who is no stranger to playing villains, having done so in Blade Runner (1982) and The Hitcher (1986). In this show, he plays Joseph Peach, the patriarch of the family, whose dark side is made eerie by how pleasant he is. His cordial manners will make his victims lower their guard. When he targets the pair of sisters, Alice and Zoe, he doesn’t wish to lure them in as victims, he wants to turn them into surrogate daughters to replace the children he lost. Pain, grief, and desperation are raw feelings that humanize Mr. Peach.

Krisha Fairchild‘s Louise is the sisters’ curt landlord with a fondness for taxidermy, who has been searching for answers about the disappearances in the city, believing it connects to the Peach family, but unsure how until Alice and Zoe meet Joseph Peach in the flesh. It’s a joy to have Fairchild in Butcher’s Block, for anyone who saw her volatile role in A24’s Thanksgiving horror movie. The rest of the cast is to die for (pun intended, of course). It doesn’t take long for viewers to notice how unique Channel Zero is when it comes to modern anthology shows like American Horror Story or Mike Flanagan’s horror universe, and this is how it connects back to The First Omen. Director Arkasha Stevenson’s two stories focus on mental health and illness.

‘The First Omen’ and ‘Channel Zero’ Share Fears About Mental Health

The First Omen endangers the safety and well-being of novitiate Margaret (Nell Tiger Free), who is unknowingly being targeted to birth the Antichrist. Viewers know this, being the prequel to the franchise it is. But it focuses on Margaret’s paranoia and uncertainty about what is real and what is fantasy. Mental illness is dismissed as bad behavior. Without any support, Margaret, in particular, begins to increasingly feel her body is turning against her. In Butcher’s Block, sisters Zoe and Alice have to confront their anxieties over their schizophrenia which they have inherited from their mother. Zoe has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and tries to self-medicate with little relief, while Alice knows she could have it too, and it’s just a waiting game. She will deny it to her sister, but she’s terrified of experiencing symptoms.

Out of his desire to have them join his family, Joseph Peach promises them he can take away their mental illness. It just involves a nasty side effect. Because this isn’t your typical horror series, schizophrenia is visualized to match how Alice views the possibility of experiencing symptoms. Inside Alice is a tumor nestled within her brain, with a bloated, giggly version of her face, in an obvious nod to The Lady in the Radiator from Eraserhead. The promise Joseph gives is too good to be true. The nasty side effect they will suffer is the sudden craving for human flesh, along with the rest of the Peachs, and like everything in this show, this take on cannibalism is not straightforward.

The Peach Family Worship a Cosmic Horror God

Foreclosed homes and walls along the main road are graffitied with a hideous mascot for the city of Garrett. A ghost-white face with a red mouth that is always drawn with open jaws. There’s an urban legend about the Peach family, and it happens to be true. They’re cannibals, with a secret about how they have never aged during all this time they have “disappeared.” When Zoe and Alice eventually walk up that mysterious staircase in the park, they open the door to walk into another realm, a safe haven for the Peachs, where a mansion sits within an endless field of yellow flowers. Joseph refers to this as a summer home, a “little plantation on top of the food chain.”

To get to the mansion requires determination, as this place doesn’t exist in the real world. The picturesque location is a facade for an ancient entity. Much like The First Omen’s demented conspiracy by Church figures to birth the Antichrist, Channel Zero has the Peachs turn to a dark faith too. Led by Joseph, they worship the Pestilent God, who protects them as long as they embrace cannibalism and offer a special sacrifice. A cannibal family worshiping a cosmic horror entity blurs reality and the otherworldly, sometimes without warning, but Season 3 makes a smart decision by keeping the Pestilent God mostly unseen. The Peach family is the main threat, and for all the carnage they commit and devour, they should earn themselves a place within the horror genre’s other killer families.

The Scares in ‘Channel Zero’s “Butcher’s Block” Are Artful and Terrifying

In The First Omen, Arkasha Stevenson favors dread over shocks. There are jump scares, but what makes this prequel hit hard is when it leaves you with an ugly knot in your stomach. The camera work and sound design force the viewer to pay attention and work out what is being seen on-screen. One of the creepiest sequences has Margaret being placed in the “bad room,” where she hears something in a corner. A burned nun who has killed herself earlier, slowly crawls out of the darkness, a shapeless form at first until she gets closer. Even when the figure isn’t clearly defined, painful and gross sounds are heard as her body crawls ahead. Channel Zero also prefers this kind of horror, and in “Butcher’s Block,” the horrific imagery is made almost beautiful.

Stevenson doesn’t help viewers anticipate jarring shots; the camera slowly pulls back or the scene cuts right to it. An Empty Bliss Beyond This World is an album by The Caretaker that manipulates and distorts soothing ballroom music (think the oldie dance tunes from The Shining) to depict the toll of Alzheimer’s disease. It pairs nicely with the mental health theme of Butcher’s Block, and one piece is heard as Zoe first encounters the marble staircase in the park. She spots the Meat Servant (Thiago Dos Santos) on the steps, wheezing noises coming from this creature that has the form of a human, except it is made entirely of meat, a startling visual that could probably put a petrified look on your face like the one on Zoe’s.

If you want your scares unconventional but always unsettling, Channel Zero will keep you up at night in the best way possible. This was Arkasha Stevenson’s first horror project, a bizarre and disturbing tale about losing oneself to darkness. All the creepy imagery or scenes mentioned here are a small slice of what this third season offers. The First Omen may be the first time someone watches her work, and it shows how she can craft scenes to terrify audiences, but Channel Zero‘s “Butcher’s Block” is just as much of a spectacular calling card from a filmmaker who brings something exciting to the genre.

The First Omen is in theaters and Channel Zero is streaming on AMC+.

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