Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Antrum' (2018)

Beware all ye who read this review, for the within written words are cursed, and you shall certainly suffer!

That nonsense right there? That's this movie in a nutshell. But hey, I love that kind of shit so why not give it a chance. Cigarette Burns (2005) was exactly the same concept; a movie that will drive you mad and kill you. We have legends about actual movies that were cursed, including The Exorcist (1973) and Poltergeist (1982), where actors and staff actually died or had serious accidents. This concept isn't new and it's actually really good. Stories like that really play on people's superstitions and make the horror seem grounded in reality. It gives them a presence that really fucks with the viewer.

That's why this movie starts as a mockumentary. Sure it's all fake, but what if there was an actual movie that is known to drive people mad and kill them? So this movie starts by building its own mythos. It tries to get into your head by working up the legend of the movie it's just about to show you. Without spoilers, but it even ends like that, reminding you that the thing you just viewed might have cursed you. It's smart storytelling and even that, including the plot of the actual movie, are brilliantly written. But the movie still falls flat. Why?

The movie has the right atmosphere and vibe. It's shot like an old 70's Horror. The movie is even pretty grainy and even does fun things like splice in symbols, words, and clips of graphic, even sexual, violence. The sound is right there with it, being always just on the side of jarring, while also splicing in stuff just on the edge of subliminal. The atmosphere is frankly perfect.

The movie even has balls. I'll have to talk about why in the spoilers, but it went fucking HARD at one point. I think the problem is it needed to go hard the whole time. This movie just didn't do a whole lot with what it did. It's always delivering a lot of something, but it just turns out to be a whole lot of nothing. For a movie with the buildup this comes with, it had better go hard enough to make the average viewer nauseous, and this just wasn't it.

I guess it's not bad, but I'll be honest, I got kinda bored until it went hard. I'm not going to say don't watch it. I feel like this movie will one day be a classic with what it tried to achieve, it is a bit of a pioneer in the concept, but like a lot of pioneers, when you look back on it, you'll discover it actually wasn't all that good.

Go ahead and give it a shot...

SPOILERS!!!

Holy CRAP this movie went hard when it finally decided to. Not every movie has the balls to try and barbecue a child alive and screaming. That's one of the things that made The Blob (1988), and Doctor Sleep (2019) so fucking brutal. The violent, even agonizing, death of a child. It's just super unsettling even for Hardcore Horror Heads. It even makes me cringe a little AND I'M PRACTICALLY FUCKING NUMB.

Though, I think the most annoying thing about this movie is that it ends like Return of the King (2003)... it's clearly over and IT JUST KEEPS FUCKING GOING! The movie actually says "The End" and rolls credits, then immediately starts back up again. And even after that, the mockumentary starts back up again. I mean, if you have to remind your viewer that the movie is cursed, did you really do a good job of delivering a movie that feels cursed? It's kinda like admitting you fucked up. I know it said it was brilliant in the first part, but I was trying not to spoil the movie. And I mean, the writing is really brilliant even if it is kind of admitting defeat.

I don't know. I guess watch this. Why not?