Distributor Danse Macabre has confirmed that Antrum will be released in UK cinemas on 23rd October 2020 and on DVD and Digital from 26th October.
Our previous coverage of this controversial film is below:
Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made is a 2016 American horror mockumentary film produced and directed by David Amito and Michael Laicini from a screenplay written by Amito.
“There’s a reason why you haven’t seen Antrum: Because you’d be dead. This occult-heavy horror film shot back in the ’70s focuses on a pair of young siblings who head into the woods to grieve over a dead pet and unwittingly discover a literal Hell on Earth.
The film has achieved notoriety due to its troubled lifespan: A theatre in Budapest screened it in 1988 and burned to the ground; several film festival programmers attempted to play it before mysteriously dying, and a violent and blood-drenched San Francisco riot followed a mid-’90s revival effort. Believed to be cursed, Antrum has since been untouched—until now.” Brooklyn Horror Film Festival
Reviews:
“The character Oralee is never really developed and Nathan’s acting is reduced to a few expressions. The climax comes on a bit quick. And, everything moves to its inevitable conclusion with a bit of monotony. Antrum is a good effort, but with only a small payoff.” 28 Days Later Analysis
“Although underlying ideas accomplish a lot of what “Antrum” sets out to do as an unusual experience, a heartier script could have made the illusion immersive instead of undercutting it with weak centerpiece substance. “Antrum” settles for being vaguely unsettling when it was on the cusp of becoming blackly evil.” Culture Crypt
” …a good film comprised of several great elements, wholly elevated by the filmmakers’ literal propagation of art’s devastating effect on people. If nothing else, Laicini and Amito get a tip of the hat for taking what would have been a decent occult film alone and supplementing it with a mythos that gave it credence and word of mouth notoriety…” Dread Central
“A few brief moments represent something more significant, explicitly calling out a gigantic iron goat statue that doubles as a Wicker Man-esque prison, but audiences never feel the horrific implications discussed during introductory hype-ups. Inherent cleverness hopes to elevate an otherwise seen-it-before exercise in genre filmmaking, despite being assured we’ve never witnessed something so hazardous.” Flickering Myth
“As a piece of faux-nostalgia (with a mean-spirited aftertaste), Antrum is an exhumed work of dizzying beauty and lysergic unease – but the po-faced documentary sections which frame this film-within-a-film also serve to muddy its waters further, making us question precisely what we may be sacrificing of ourselves when we willingly suspend disbelief and yield to art’s illusory sway.” Projected Figures
“Its bracketing documentary sequences are enticing but the film itself, shown completely, can’t live up to its infernal legacy. I’d have preferred to see the subject film be shorter and the analysis of its madness go deeper. That’s not to say Antrum is bad; it’s not. It is effective on all counts, but it could have been so much more.” RJ Tougas
“The story-within-a-story mockumentary might seem gimmicky, and the plot might sound like something you have seen before, but Antrum heads into far darker places than the hole these two kids set to digging. Anchors of reality and mythology that audiences traditionally cling to are not given here. At any given moment the game can change, and it often does.” Rue Morgue
“Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made may not convince viewers that the film is cursed and they’re going to die after watching it (I haven’t… yet) but its commitment to the gimmick, its ethereal score, and its eerie imagery make for a creepy and effective throwback horror film.” Slash Film
“Anyone who has a fondness for seventies grindhouse or even arthouse obscurities will find something to enjoy here, such is the attention to detail. Everything about the film-within-a-film appears authentic. Even the documentary wraparound is convincing once you get over the preconceived thought that they’re just going to build up the hype to nothing.” Starburst
“Antrum is therefore fairly successful on the unease front, though I found myself craving more explication; beyond that atmosphere, the film was so thin that any genuine impact or occult content – i.e. being able to believe in the central premise or its implications in any way – was soon lost.” Warped Perspective
Release:
Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made premiered at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival on October 14, 2018. Antrum received a limited theatrical release via Uncork’d Entertainment before being available on Digital HD and VOD services and DVD on November 12th 2019.
Trailer:
YouTube reviews:
