Main cast: Rowan Smyth (Nathan), Nicole Tompkins (Oralee), Circus-Szalewski, Kristen Elling, Shu Sakimoto, Carrie Hammontree, Pierluca Arancio, Jero Medina, and Amy Collison
Directors: David Amito and Michael Laicini
If you have ever found the stupid video in that The Ring movie frightening, then you will love Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made because it’s like an extended version of that video. Here are ten minutes of the moon! Look, the sky! Look at it for five minutes! Ooh, the moon again! The tree! The well, let’s stare at the well for twenty minutes, ooh! Are you terrified for your life yet?
The gimmick here is that this movie is a mock documentary, placing the audience in the front seat as a “deadly film” plays on the screen. First, we get some conversations with “experts” and “historians” who tell the viewer that Antrum is like a cursed film – the rare few times it was publicly screened always ended in disaster as people died due to all kinds of usually unlikely freak accidents. Well, the “producers” of this movie found that film, so now, the audience will watch the film…
… which turns out to be a slow, plodding, overload-me-with-sedatives flick about two brats walking around the woods and digging holes in the ground, presumably to rescue the soul of their dead dog from hell. Or something. Symbols flash on the screen at quick intervals, and every scene is laden with pretentious people or things moving in slow motion. Conversations are deliberately vague, delivered with leaden pauses to convey intelligence or gravity that is never really there because this movie is a gimmick gone wrong. It’s boring. It’s stupid. The people behind this want to be responsible for some surprise horror hit or a cult film so bad, but this thing looks some some reject reel found in Blumhouse’s trash can. If anything, the people who died in the fire while watching this probably committed mass immolation to end the painful boredom inflicted on them by this indescribably dull film.
Okay, the cinema work and lighting aren’t too bad, but still, one bloody oogie to this wretched thing for wasting my time and money.
