Antrum

It's pretty good. There are some creepy scenes in here. No huge scares but definitely an eerie creepy atmosphere. Don't worry it won't actually hurt you it's just a movie. It's pretty good we say give it a try! Solid 6!

7/10

I liked the film. The film succeeds in creating a creepy atmosphere. It is not as scary as some people in the review mentioned, it is definitely creepy and an interesting watch.

Plot: The film starts by introducing the legend of the film named Antrum. It is said to be cursed and anyone who saw it died. The Antrum starts. A boy has nightmares that his dead puppy Maxine is in hell, so his older sister takes him to a forest where with help of a mysterious book they can dig into second layer of hell and save the soul of Maxine. On this journey things gets increasingly disturbing and the question arises are we really in a forest or descending into hell.

The imagery is effective and creepy. We see lots of sigils, markings and blurred face of demons. The editing is done intentionally in a way that makes seem like made with some sinister purpose. The cautionary tale in the beginning is very clever, it makes the viewing feels like something we shouldn't be doing.

The acting is amazing, there are some twists there. Which makes sense and was hinted early on. The characters of brother and sister is likable.

The film has similar feelings of The Blair Witch Project. Towards the end film gets intense. Enjoyed the film.

While clearly not appreciated by everyone, I found Antrum incredibly effective.

I would start with the pitch-perfect performances of the two protagonists, played by Nicole Tompkins and Rowan Smyth. At times you forget you're watching a movie; you can tell the direction is very deliberate here as the script slithers along in an unorthodox and bizarre way, yet these two actors somehow manage to express exactly what you'd believe real people would at any given moment.

Secondly, the film is disorienting and oppressive. This is accomplished, first of all, by invading a "safe space" from demons, Satan, hell, and the occult: a sunny, almost idyllic forest. Usually, dark forces creep around in gothic mansions or dark forests after midnight, around bonfires.

Not so, here. Instead, the bad stuff happens mainly in broad daylight in an otherwise peaceful, appealing setting. The effect, therefore, is more unsettling because daylight and nice forests are supposed to be the respite between the periods of darkness where evil things rise and run amok in the shadows.

There is no respite here.

Further, the not-quite-subliminal frames inserted into the film really amplify matters, which brings me to the most important point:

If the filmmakers would have asked me my opinion of this, I would have advised them to ditch the concept of a "cursed film" leaving the middle part - the Antrum story itself - to speak for itself. It feels like the filmmakers started out with this idea of a cursed film, perhaps with the film's plot as a secondary concern, but in reality the film itself holds up well and exceeds expectations.

In particular, we're not 100% sure that what we're seeing is really happening, or whether the two characters have unwittingly created an egregore, in which a consensus hallucination of sort is occurring.

Had the filmmakers had a much larger budget, they might have been tempted to use CGI to represent actual supernatural elements, but, in particular, the chains dragging across the forest floor were somehow more horrifying than a full-bore representation of what was supposed to be pulling at those chains.

I might have even advised pulling back further to make this even more subtle. The real tension here is between what is real and what is imagined in the minds of the characters.

The metal baphomet is reminiscent of the wicker man, which I appreciated, and the way the film doesn't feel the need to explain the presence of that or the forest Hungarians who treat it as some kind of totem, is greatly appreciated. Any attempt to tie this film together with a grand explanation would have been far less satisfying.

Something is seriously wrong in this forest.

Lastly, there is the soundtrack, which must be fully heard to be believed. As with the deft editing, I kept wondering how the filmmakers figured out how to combine all of these things the way they did to create a deeply unsettling experience.

I am not sure why this is not rated higher. Viewed in the right state of mind, the film really breaks a lot of conventions.

I like it a whole lot. What starts as a film about tunnelling to hell morphs into folk horror, as the landscape - the sunny forest - becomes a character unto itself.

Warning. This is a movie that's better watched without prior research.

Antrum is a gimmick. It is a movie about a movie that plays the movie in its entirety, and that is going to make it a difficult pill for many people to swallow. But the premise is pretty solid. There exists this movie, it is pretty messed up, and everyone who watches it dies. Now, does it work?

The movie is interesting in its commitment to the gimmick. It does feel like a movie from the 70s. There are a few tells that detract from it, but things like the choice of clothes, the jenky 70s audio, and grainy film quality does make it feel older. But more importantly, it makes some of the effects feel natural. Periodically, there are sigils that pop up that looked as though they were etched into the film by hand. Then comes the truly messed up parts. The movie sporadically just quits and cuts to some shocking footage. I didn't care for the torture scenes so much but there is one scene that I found truly disturbing. Without spoiling anything, its when the screen just spontaneously goes black where the movie gets genuinely so creepy it becomes hard to watch. There is no build to it but it is the most upsetting two minutes I've seen in any movie.

Unfortunately, the plot of the movie is a bit slow and tedious. There are long shots of kids digging a hole. In fact, that's the premise of the movie. This isn't necessarily bad, it works with the gimmick, but if you can't bring yourself to buy into that gimmick, its going to hurt. A lot. No manner of horrible taxidermy squirrels or devil shaped brass bulls is going to save that. If you can get into it, the movie is pretty entertaining, like looking up cursed images online. Its just you putting more into it.

I overall liked it. It was a fun experience if only for its cursed film gimmick. Not for everyone but ultimately something that should have been tried for yourself before reading a single review. So if you've gotten to this point, you've done goofed.

Gaining some notoriety on the VOD circuit after it found itself sitting atop of Amazon Prime's number 1 trending position during the Covid-19 streaming highs of mid-April, Antrum's gimmicky set-up of ¼ documentary about the film in question and ¾ feature developed as if it was filmed in the late 70's and only now unearthed after a series of cursed screenings and death of viewers, is a neat marketing ploy for what is an otherwise entirely generic and rather bland offering.

To give its directors David Amito and Michael Laicini credit, Antrum does a great job in its quest to feel like a genuine product of the horror nasties that littered rental stores in the 70's and 80's and in an production space and sense this low budget offering should be commended for its respect of the films that clearly inspired it, but the narrative built around this is a Blair Witch like slow-burn that never gets to the culmination or pay-off one would hope.

For what's supposed to be "the deadliest film ever!" much of Antrum is rather tame, you keep suspecting a finale to blow us off our feet is coming, something akin to Hereditary, The Witch or The House of the Devil perhaps, but Amito and Laicini are unable to get us to a destination like that as Antrum peters out with an ending that is neither scary or shocking, despite brief hints it might be going to some such space.

Surrounded by Alicia Fricker's noteworthy score and some solid performances from its young leads Nicole Tompkins and Rowan Smyth, as two siblings hell-bent on finding the soul of their lost family pet in some seedy woods that harbor some dark goings on, Antrum has more going for it than your average direct to VOD release that litter the marketplaces these days with their enticing titles and plot lines but it's never able to capitalise on the strengths it finds itself in possession of.

There's no doubt that had Antrum been able to utilise the tools at its disposal and done more with its hybrid idea of fake documentary played straight with a special screening of the film at the core of its investigation, we could've been in for a real horror treat but despite its title that claims otherwise the only deadly thing about this affair is how boring and lame it gets in its end game, squashing any chance it had of making its mark.

Final Say -

The marketing team behind Antrum deserve some sort of bonus as while much has been made about concept and deadly nature of this film, Antrum is in most cases a boorish horror that lives off its fine throwback style to a time gone by.

2 grimoires out of 5