Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made (2018)
Directed by David Amito & Michael Laicini
Starring Nicole Tompkins, Rowan Smyth, Dan Istrate, Circus-Szalewski

I had recently watched what I thought was a real documentary called Fury of the Demon (2016), written and directed by Fabien Delage, which was about a lost silent film that was reported to make people go crazy. It is played completely straight as if it was a real, talking about a real curse film. But when they started talking about a screening in France in 2012, I kept thinking “Wait… I would have remembered that!” That is when I really started to question the legitimacy of it. But, I will say that it worked.

The legend of the curse film has been around for a while, with even John Carpenter tackling the subject in his Masters of Horror episode Cigarette Burns (2005). But two years after Fury, another film comes out that seems to have the same shtick, this time it was a film from the early ’70s that no one seems to know where it was made, or who added some extra frames here and there, or scratched the markings or sigils that appear every so often. But what is different here is that after the opening where they are talking about this supposedly cursed film, it seems a print had been discovered and are now going to screen it! It is called Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made.

The story is about a young boy who’s dog has to be put down and was told it was going to go to hell because it was a bad dog, which really upsets him. His older sister comes with a plan to help relieve her brother of his nightmares and to “save” the dog. This includes going into the woods and digging a hole and a few other ‘rituals’. But while in the woods, strange things start to happen. There is more to the story than that, but I don’t want to give too much away. I will say that while there isn’t anything that is going to traumatize and viewer, or show you images so dark that it will burn into your psyche. It is more that there are more than a few scenes that are genuinely creepy and will get under your skin, or have you on the edge of your seat. You will feel that you’re in the hands of a filmmaker that just might go over the edge, or somewhere you weren’t expecting. That’s the beauty here… you just don’t know.

Honestly, if they would have cut out all the documentary stuff in the beginning and the end, and just played the film as is, I think it would have been much better. I think the film stands well enough on its own that it didn’t need all the ballyhoo. Plus, the strange bits of footage, the scratches, the sigils appearing through the running time, actually took me out of the story. As you get into the story and these characters, you’re suddenly pulled out because of all these images where it seems like they are trying to “HEY! Look at this symbol! It’s CURSED!” I think if they would have just released this film as a “lost film”, leaving all the curse stuff out, I think it would have played much better and had a stronger reaction.

David Amito and Michael Laicini wrote, produced, and directed this, what is really their first feature film. Even with the unnecessary ballyhoo, I think they created a very good film, that really does look like it was made in the 70s, from the look of the characters to the look of the actual print. Not an easy task, so kudos to them. I think it is well worth seeking out. It may not blow you away, but I think you may at least find some parts of it very intriguing.