#antrum

is there anyone who maybe watched and liked antrum

my honest reaction whrn im scrolling tumblr and see only hate towards this movie

Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made goes in for a high risk approach and delivers a complete finished film, ostensibly made in the 70s and never released, framed by brief opening and closing info bites to set the stage of it.

Somehow this thing was completely off my radar, which means I was taken fully off guard as an ominous warning about the content in white text on black appeared on screen, giving a thirty second count down to leave if I wanted.

Wonderful showmanship and canny filmmaking that got me right in the mood to enjoy what followed. While I wouldn't call it a scary movie, I found it almost delightful in the atmospheric dread and devotion to its aesthetic of low budget 70s films. Nothing in it feels like a curse on its own, but it does feel like the sort of movie that could easily prompt psychological distress for anyone under psychotropic influences, pre-existing emotional vulnerability, or prone to delusional states. Not through anything supernatural, more because it works hard to keep the viewer in constant doubt over what is and is not real for the characters in the film. Combined with the framing device of it being a movie somehow able to influence the real world of the viewer, and the use of fractionally visible flashes of occult symbols on the screen, it generates an intense feeling of unreality which for me was an almost drug-like high and an immersive pleasure.

The premise of Antrum is simply a brother and sister decide to dig a hole to hell, and the movie plays out around this event by surrounding it with disturbing sounds and imagery, as well as real world dangers that weave the protagonists between the supernatural and mundane while keeping them in a state of terror and madness that grows until it becomes unrelenting.

In a certain sense it also feels cursed, like the kind of film where there are elements that feel very transgressive - in particular the opening scene which to my mind evoked Un Chien Andalou - not the infamous eyeball slicing scene, but the use of rotting animals. The few and very basic visual effects remind me as well of the early Survival Research Laboratory devices engineered by Mark Pauline.

However, the core question for me is also always what is the movie about besides the plot. If I had to identify some rough themes, I would say it's trying to explore the idea of understanding death and violence through the eyes of children who do not yet have the psychological tools for processing such matters, but who have been left on their own to do so regardless.

Many of the unusual elements in the movie can relate to death rituals poorly understood, starting from the very premise of digging a hole into the earth. And the same act is surrounded by strange rituals unclear in their origin, ideas which might be logical drawn from watching words recited over a grave without having a connection of purpose. Their encounters with other people are fully without possibility of communication as none of them speak the same language, and these mundane threats feel at times akin to a satanic Alice in Wonderland, rituals and violence whose meaning cannot be understood by the protagonists.

Likewise the supernatural is full of unprocessed images of death. Demons with black skin who look like mummified corpses. River crossings and empty chains dragging through leaves. It's as if death itself has manifested through the ambient world, surrounding the two children and refusing to let them leave its circle.

On July 13, 2018, Broke Horror Fan launched its VHS line with Victor Crowley. We're commemorating the anniversary with some out-of-print tapes from our archives over the past five years.

They're available now at Witter Entertainment. Quantities are extremely limited - many titles only have a single copy - so act fast. Pick up a new Heck Yes VHS shirt while you're at it.

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

The first time I watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I felt unclean afterwards, as though the grime and grit of the setting had infected my skin. It is, after all, a thoroughly unpleasant cinematic experience: every frame resembles a murder victim’s last known photograph, and the climactic descent into insanity seems far too genuine to have been staged for the camera (if Leatherface actor Gunnar Hansen’s personal accounts are to be believed, grueling conditions behind-the-scenes indeed reduced the cast and crew to a mad delirium). Few movies since have had such a profound and visceral impact upon my psyche; only Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made has come close.

In this case, of course, the effect is entirely intentional; whereas Tobe Hooper apparently considered Chainsaw Massacre to be a dark comedy (which does come through in the finished product… if you squint), Antrum is deliberately designed to assault the subconscious, from the early disclaimer warning any audience members suffering from weak constitutions to leave the theater (William Castle would be proud) to the fake-out closing credits that roll approximately ten minutes prior to the actual ending.

I hesitate to discuss the plot and themes in further detail; much of the story’s suspense lies in discovering its intricacies and idiosyncrasies as it unfolds, and I’d hate to deprive potential fans of that thrill. Suffice it to say that recognizing the various visual tricks and sleight-of-hand techniques employed by directors David Amito and Michael Laicini—the documentary-style prologue, which elegantly creates a palpable sense of anticipation for the terror to follow; the fabricated “snuff” footage randomly interspersed between shots, which within the context of the overarching meta-narrative is obviously meant to be “authentic” (an homage, I believe, to Michael Findlay’s infamously trashy Snuff); the enigmatic occult symbols scratched into the “celluloid,” which linger just a bit too long to fit the textbook definition of “subliminal”—hardly diminishes the film’s mystique and allure.