‘Antrum’ VOD Review
Stars: Nicole Tompkins, Rowan Smyth, Dan Istrate, Circus-Szalewski, Shu Sakimoto, Kristel Elling, Lucy Rayner, Pierluca Arancio, A.J. Bond, Nathan Fleet, Brock Fricker, Assen Gadjalov | Written and Directed by David Amito, Michael Laicini
When you call your movie ’the deadliest film ever made’ you’re either brave, or stupid. Or I guess extremely confident in what you have produced. You open yourself up to a whole lot of criticism, mainly because people will expect something that they are very unlikely to get.
I kept my expectations low though. I actually liked that the filmmakers had gone with that tagline and also sent this line – “By watching ANTRUM you agree that Jinga Films and SC Movies is hereby released of all liability for any event that might occur to you during or after your viewing” – to whoever was sent the screener. If you’re going to make this kind of movie, you might as well go all for it.
Antrum is a film-within-a film as the first fifteen minutes are a mockumentary talking about the ACTUAL movie Antrum. Confused? I’ll try to explain some more. The mockumentary explains that Antrum is this ‘cursed’ movie that was shown once in a movie theatre that quickly burned to the ground, killing everyone that saw the movie. It is also suggested that any screeners of the movie that were sent for consideration at festivals, have ‘killed’ anyone that has watched it.
The short talking heads section that explains this is well-made and interesting, a nice start to the movie as a whole and it sets things up nicely. It definitely added to the atmosphere of watching it.
The movie itself is just as interesting. It covers a girl who is trying to help her much younger brother get over the death of the family dog. The boy believes the dog will be going to hell and the sister concocts a plan to save the dogs soul so it will go to heaven. It sounds much more complicated than it is and in truth that actual part of the story doesn’t matter a whole lot. It’s all about that atmosphere that the director creates.
Antrum is genuinely scary at times. Much of this has to do with the use of sound and score. I watched the film with headphones on and I feel that it really added to my viewing. The score felt like it was sticking in the back of my head, creepy sounds and voices would be loud in just one ear and then on to another. Alot of thought had clearly gone into these things.
There’s also images and symbols that are shown on screen fora split second -marks in the film – and one very creepy scene where a dark devil like face stays on screen for what seems like forever as you try and stare back at it.
The director gets that seventies/eighties look and style down nicely aswell with the colour scheme and generally look of the movie.
Antrum isn’t perfect. The actual movie itself isn’t overly exciting or well-acted (not badly acted though to be fair). And although I was kind of entranced by it all I can’t say I will jump at the chance for a second viewing. In part because of the bizarre decision to include in the credits some kind of explanation on how the film was made and how the creepiest parts were produced. It seems an odd decisoon to tell the audience this when you are presenting this as a ‘real’ cursed movie.
Antrum has plenty going for it. There’s some interesting marketing here and the director has created an aura around the movie that sticks with you while watching it. It crept me out more than many movies do and that’s because it is very well made. Horror fans looking for something new and intriguing to watch should definitely check it out.
*** 3/5
Antrum is available on VOD now.
