ROX-TV talks about “The Sunday Night Movie” Antrum: The deadliest film ever made
Sometimes there is a movie that comes along and catches my eye. It could be for different reasons I suppose, but I will say that it needs to offer a little more than just the standard industry cry to wake me up. I’m into movies, all kinds, but have a soft spot in my heart for horror type pieces, counter culture highlights, and stories of excess. What am I looking for when I’m not writing or wasting my time? A fresh idea, a new perspective, or just pure entertainment. To rope me in, I’m often looking for originality. A budget helps, but that can easily be overcome with resourcefulness.
In 2021 it has become rather hard to impress people for a variety of reasons. For starters, if your older than thirty than you’ve grown accustom to the industry tricks and the unfortunate repetitive nature of today’s entertainment. I’ve been around for forty years, so for me, seeing the “remake” become a replacement for original concepts is rather disappointing. Not all remakes are bad, and some are actually enjoyable. When the new “Nightmare on Elm Street” dropped in April of 2010, I was rather skeptical until I seen it.
I thought that the new take on the aging series hit high marks. The film obviously had a budget which is always a bonus, but the direction back towards a “Freddy” that maybe wasn’t so bold or funny was a great move. It harkened back to the days of the first “Nightmare on Elm Street” which dropped in 1984 and was directed by Wes Craven. In that first movie, the story line was actually spooky and “Freddy” didn’t have funny lines or too much dialogue. He was a menacing force, that did more with actions while avoiding the jokes.
By Nightmare on Elm Street Part 6, which dropped in 1991, Freddy had gone from being a kid’s worst nightmare, to basically a parody of himself. Some people might not have minded or even enjoyed the “comedy” but I didn’t. It made everything feel cheap and perhaps, I felt dumb for staying on the bus for as long as I had with the series. I guess anything is hard to keep fresh and alive, but it feels “chintzy” when people stop trying and just toss in some shit with the original title stapled to it.
It’s not like I still don’t enjoy these films, but you see what I’m getting at. It’s hard to strike out into new turf and try something different, but that’s where the greatness can be found. Is it easy? No. If it was, everyone would be rich and living in huge houses, smashing homeruns off every idea that came down the line. Many that try fail, and although its discouraging, I’d much rather give it a go, than die on the vine never knowing what could have been. So how does all this tie in to Antrum? Like I said earlier, movies that come off as original appeal to me in a big way. It’s one thing to just offer up a story to consume, but the special ones have even more in store. Sometimes it can be like “In the Mouth of Madness” by John Carpenter.
That movie had a good concept, was original, and even incorporated an effect that I thought was genius. If a viewer pays attention, what they find is that they are almost brought into the story line, to not only watch but literally become part of the story. “In the Mouth of Madness” the viewer realizes at the end of the movie that they have in fact watched a movie, which, at least in the actual story line, causes the viewer to go crazy. At the end, a viewer finds themselves watching the movie with John Trent, as he finally loses his mind and for sharp kids, the realization could be extended to the audience at home. Not everyone gets it, but people that understand, the effect is awesome.
Another example of a “concept” movie would be the “The Blair Witch Project” which dropped at the Sundance Film Festival in January of 1999. For those that may have missed this movie or not been alive in 1999, I have to give a short back story to explain. Back in those days the internet had not replaced real life. Social media wasn’t a fact of life and real life reigned supreme. Society was a word of mouth place, and I suppose it always had been, until the cell phones became an extension of people’s bodies in the last two decades.
When a good movie was coming out, chances are you heard it from a friend at school, work, or from a stranger. In the 1990’s we still talked to people we didn’t know and public conversations were actually a normal function of life. When I first heard about the “The Blair Witch Project” it was shrouded in mystery and excitement. The mystery part was easy, because not everyone had computers, cell phones, or the internet. A story about something could spread and in some cases catch fire, sweeping the nation, and driving up curiosity. The excitement part about this movie was that it was “rumored” to be a true story. The story that reached into every state and community was that three independent film makers who had gone missing in 1994 while doing a film on a local “witch” legend.
If you don’t believe something like that was possible, think again. The marketing strategy for the film was to list the actors as “missing or deceased” when it dropped at midnight on January 23rd, 1999. Because of the implications that the movie was possibly “true” drove people fucking crazy. No one could stop talking about the movie about three missing kids, nor the fact that the movie was allegedly just the “found footage” from the missing film makers. Discovered in the woods, a year after they had vanished. It might sound crazy, but the marketing strategy worked and the movie grossed $250 Million dollars worldwide, making it one of the most successful indie films of all time.
A film that pushes the boundaries to what is possible is one that I’m going to enjoy, especially when watching it somehow puts me right into the action or allows me to partake in the story line somehow. I think its just human nature for those of us who still have imaginations that work, or at least a partial functioning one. The ability to wonder “what if” and to get truly scared is still kind of cool after all these years. That slice of the “unknown” and what could be lurking around the corner in the dark. In reality, it’s probably nothing unless someone has just broken into your home, but when the imagination station kicks in, the supernatural comes to life with all the gypsy carts that roll with that.
Is it easy to get people’s blood up today? No, it’s rather difficult. Short of an actual murder caught on tape, its a challenge to get noticed these days. But here we are, getting ready to examine Antrum. A movie that caught my attention with some pretty imaginative moves. It’s not everyday a person hears about a movie that causes people “to die” after viewing it. Or at the very least, a movie that reportedly “changes” people forever that watch it. Obviously, I was intrigued and although I was pretty sure that no one would release a movie that killed the viewers, it had my attention. Who doesn’t like watching a train wreck? At this point, America is pretty much along for that ride.
Antrum: The deadliest film ever made (first watch)
It’s kind of strange now that I look back on how I heard about this film. Maybe it was just dumb luck, flipping my life away with the remote on a dark night. I can barely remember what I was even doing, until the moment I read the title. I remember thinking “what kind of deadliest movie ever made” are we talking about? Did the film cover a deadly event? Maybe during the course of producing the film people had been bumped off? I couldn’t really say until I learned more.
The graphic on the tv looked menacing, with what appeared to be an ode to old school devil type imagery. I said fuck it, and hit the button wanting to know more. It was listed as coming out in 2018, was a horror movie, and clocked in at almost one hour and thirty five minutes. These were good signs. It wasn’t thirty years old, it was a scary movie, and was almost two hours long. I hate those short movies, that feel more like an episode on Netflix, as opposed to a real movie. I think anything over an hour and a half feels right.
An image from the legendary cursed movie “Antrum”. Reportedly to have certain properties that cause harm to anyone brave enough to watch it. It even comes with a legal notice against liability.
“To rescue the soul of their deceased dog, a young boy and girl enter a forest and dig a hole to hell” was the description listed. It didn’t seem to explain why the film was the deadliest movie ever, but the short description seemed reasonable enough. Any trip to hell can be worth a look, real or imagined. I didn’t know it yet but the film was slowly getting it’s hooks in me. I checked to see if the film was available on a channel I possessed and it was. I guess at that point there was no turning back. I could always shut it off, and wasn’t out shit.
The movie wasted no time and jumped into some old looking, turn of the last century silent movie clips. The devil seemed to be the main feature. The clips made me want to watch whatever movies they were from and reminded me of the Smashing Pumpkins video for “Tonight, Tonight”.
I’m always down for vintage clips because they are interesting and I dig history. Then out of nowhere, I hear a man talking about the movie Antrum and how it is “not safe”. Ah Ha, the first sighting of something intriguing. The next shots are of a “movie theater” in Budapest, that burnt to the ground in 1988. Can you guess what movie was playing there when that happened? It was the one and only Antrum. The documentary type footage looked surprisingly real and I wasn’t sure if I was watching Antrum or something about Antrum. As weird as it was, I figured I had stumbled upon a tell all movie about another movie. But rushing to conclusions can be ill advised, so I decided to just wait and see. No harm in doing that I suppose.
Supposedly, fifty six people died during the screening of the movie, when the joint erupted into multiple fires all over the theatre. I thought this was a movie about a dog and a hole to hell, but what I was seeing was not what my expectations had been. It had been better to withhold judgement, at least until I had more to go on. What was, was not what was expected, but I wasn’t disappointed either. Perhaps I was pleasantly surprised after all.
Do you watch the most deadliest film on earth? Is it a smart thing to do?
The movie jumps to interviewing a guy who talks about the screening and tragedy. From there a guy named A.J. Bond (Antrum Aficionado) starts talking about the film and how unique it is. He speaks about the film becoming the holy grail of cult films, despite no one having actually lived to tell the tale, after seeing the film. In essence the film is cursed and deadly to all those who see it. This was shaping up to be an interesting documentary, which I figured may have been mislabeled, with the original first exposure really being a cover for this archival footage. Clever.
The next person the viewer hears from is a guy named Nathan Fleet, who looks and sounds like a proper movie head. The person that can really break it down for you, without the bullshit or giving away too much. His official title appears to be the Director of the Hamilton International Film Festival. Staying true to form, the “expert” hasn’t seen the movie Antrum but “has heard” things about the film. He starts to break down things he has only heard about and images flash on the screen from the actually movie. At this point I was still locked in and interested about the actual movie, which was slowly being fed to me. Could seeing a portion of the movie kill me? Or did I have to see it all?
The images look like proper vintage 1970’s type screen shots. It reminded me of Halloween Part One, with that flat feeling, almost cloudy in a weird way. The mysterious voice talking over the documentary starts dropping knowledge about the film, and how in the eighties it was sent out to a series of film festivals (seven in all, circa 1983) who all rejected a public viewing, while disturbing images slowly drip across the tv screen.
Several of the festival programmers who received the film, died shortly after the films arrival, continuing the ever growing and fast moving legend of the film. I was impressed by the steady and seamless drumbeat message this documentary was delivering. It was moving along just slow enough for the message, but moving fast enough as not to question the source of the information being bombarded on the viewer. Neat trick and somewhat effective, but I caught it.
In 1993, the film was about to make a mysterious disappearance, but not before one more good scare. In San Francisco “the movie that kills” enticed a local theatre to run the film. By then, the alleged magic curse was known to the people flocking to see it that night in California. The docu-lady says the mood was jovial at first, but things turned rather odd and frightening when people started to lose their minds, stomping each other with violent attacks. I watched with great curiosity as it was revealed that a movie worker had dosed the popcorn in the theatre with LSD. Causing violence and tragedy. One death and thirty injuries were reported. A man named “Richard Semmy” was later convicted for tampering with the popcorn.
The myth continues to build as the movie was reportedly lost, while others claimed to have seen it and lived….and then the big shocker. The movie “expert” from earlier is telling the viewer, the movie has been found. The producers of the film I was watching had apparently tracked down a “sole copy” of Antrum at an estate auction in Connecticut. The otherwise normal film, had notable film peculiarities when observed that apparently produced “physical and psychological” effects in the viewer. The film also seems to have be manipulated by a third party, because there are scenes which seem to be injected into the original film stock.
I must admit it was a pretty good build up. But the biggest blow was coming when the announcer advised that for the first time in twenty years, Antrum was about to be viewed. Then a legal notice appears on the screen warning anyone who is willing to continue further, that they are not liable for death, injury, and the other terrible things. A small countdown in the bottom of the screen added to the overall effect.
I was shocked because I had not expected to actually view the film, not from the hype and buildup of the movie I had been watching, but there I was, presented with a rabbit hole and a choice. I could shut the movie off, knowing full well about all the alleged horrible things I had been told, or wander into the unknown…..Although I was half tempted to shut it off, after the work up, I wanted to face whatever was waiting for me. But there was that feeling somewhere deep inside, saying “just go write an article” or “read an enchanted book”.
I couldn’t turn back, not after all that. It’s not in my nature and I actually wanted to see this cult status movie which was possibly cursed and a killer. I wanted to look into the movie’s eyes and peer into that darkness, to see for myself. Besides….I had what else to do? We all have choices to make. Do you dare watch it?
