Lights, Camera, Damnation
There’s cursed films, and then there’s Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made—a movie so diabolical it promises to kill you just for pressing play. And honestly, in this economy, that’s almost a selling point.
Directed by David Amito and Michael Laicini, Antrum isn’t just a movie—it’s a beautifully constructed dare. A cursed reel of 1970s Satanic celluloid wrapped in a 2018 mockumentary bow, it combines the aesthetics of a lost art-house relic with the paranoia of a late-night conspiracy YouTube binge. It’s weird, it’s stylish, and it’s smarter than it has any right to be.
Imagine The Blair Witch Project had a baby with Ringu, and that baby grew up watching too much National Geographic: Hell Edition. That’s Antrum.
The Setup: How to Die in Cinema Without Really Trying
The film opens with a mockumentary so straight-faced it would make Werner Herzog blink. Supposedly, Antrum was shot in 1979, banned after film festivals started mysteriously killing off their programmers, and later caused riots, fires, and—my personal favorite—a concession worker spiking popcorn with LSD. (Frankly, that just sounds like the best way to watch it.)
In this universe, the movie is so cursed it might as well come with a priest and a waiver. Scholars dissect its “occult sound frequencies,” while experts in suits warn the viewer not to continue. Naturally, we all continue anyway. Because if horror has taught us anything, it’s that humans see “DO NOT ENTER” as “FREE MOVIE NIGHT.”
The mockumentary portion sets the stage perfectly: a deadpan build-up that primes your brain to treat the following film-within-a-film as an archaeological artifact—the cinematic equivalent of unearthing a haunted VHS in your grandma’s attic.
The Film Within the Film: Welcome to Hell, Kids
Then Antrum itself begins.
We’re suddenly in the late 1970s: washed-out film grain, distorted sound, and a color palette that screams “Satan loves sepia.” The story follows Oralee (Nicole Tompkins) and her younger brother Nathan (Rowan Smyth), two siblings mourning their dead dog, Maxine.
After their mom tells Nathan that bad dogs go to Hell—solid parenting there—Oralee decides to help her little brother “rescue Maxine’s soul.” Naturally, this involves digging a literal hole to Hell. Because what else do you do when your brother’s sad? Therapy? Nah. You grab a shovel, a grimoire, and a goat skull.
They venture into the forest—always a good idea in horror—and begin performing rituals straight out of a satanic IKEA manual. The deeper they dig, the weirder things get: cannibals, suicidal samurai, hallucinations, and a sense that something far older and hungrier is watching.
By the time Oralee’s losing her grip on reality and the screen starts flickering with hidden sigils, you’re no longer sure if you’re watching a movie, or if the movie’s watching you.
What Makes It Brilliant (and Brilliantly Deranged)
Amito and Laicini’s genius lies in their restraint. The scares aren’t loud—they’re invasive. The camera lingers too long, the soundtrack hums at frequencies that make your spine itch, and every frame feels like a cursed painting you shouldn’t be looking at.
It’s not jump scares—it’s dread. The kind that settles in like secondhand smoke and won’t leave the room.
And those subliminal flashes? They’re not just gimmicks. They’re part of the film’s DNA—arcane runes, demonic faces, and snuff-like inserts that make your lizard brain whisper, “something’s wrong.” You can almost feel the filmmakers grinning as they embed each symbol like a digital curse for future film students to obsess over.
Antrum weaponizes belief. It’s not about whether the curse is real—it’s about how easily we want it to be. The audience becomes complicit, waiting for something to happen after the credits. And when your lights flicker or your phone buzzes mid-screening, congratulations—you’re now part of the legend.
The Aesthetic: Satanic Folk Horror Meets Lost VHS
Visually, Antrum nails its aesthetic. It doesn’t just mimic 1970s horror—it is 1970s horror. The camera work is rough but intentional, the sound mix imperfect in all the right ways. You half-expect to see the words “PROPERTY OF BEELZEBUB PRODUCTIONS” scratched into the reel.
The occult imagery feels authentically researched—enough to make you Google “Astaroth” afterward (do not do this; your search history will regret it). The forest itself is gorgeous, sun-bleached yet sinister, a pastoral hellscape that feels alive.
The filmmakers also splice in black-and-white “snuff” fragments, further blurring the line between fiction and found footage. It’s disturbing, yes—but also artistically daring. This isn’t your average streaming-service horror flick with jump cuts and ring lights. It’s a meta-narrative ritual wearing 16mm film as its skin.
The Performances: Children of the Damned (and Earnest)
Nicole Tompkins brings just the right amount of big-sister desperation to Oralee—half nurturing, half delusional camp counselor. She’s trying to comfort her brother while clearly losing her grip, and Tompkins makes that descent chillingly relatable.
Rowan Smyth as Nathan is quietly phenomenal. There’s something deeply unsettling about his innocence; his wide-eyed belief turns every scene into a question mark. Is he seeing demons, or is he just a kid in grief? Either way, his performance anchors the madness in something heartbreakingly human.
The cannibals (Dan Istrate and Circus-Szalewski) deserve honorable mention too. They don’t just chew the scenery—they roast it over a fire in the shape of Baphomet.
The Humor: Death by Irony
For a movie drenched in Satanic doom, Antrum has a wicked sense of humor. Not overtly—there’s no winking at the camera—but in its premise alone: a cursed movie about a cursed movie, daring you to watch it. It’s like The Ring met a marketing executive who said, “What if we make the curse part of the trailer?”
Even the mockumentary intro is a sly satire of horror academia—earnest scholars discussing “demonic subfrequencies” like it’s a TED Talk. One expects a graph titled Correlation Between Hellmouths and Ticket Sales.
It’s horror as performance art—a cinematic prank that leaves you both impressed and slightly insulted that you fell for it.
The Themes: Grief, Guilt, and the Abyss Staring Back
Beneath the folklore and the faux fatalities lies a surprisingly poignant story about loss. Nathan and Oralee’s journey isn’t just through a literal forest of death—it’s through the wilderness of mourning. Oralee’s “ritual” is her desperate attempt to protect her brother from despair, but in doing so, she opens something much darker.
That’s the beauty of Antrum: the horror works both metaphorically and viscerally. It’s about the things we can’t let go of—dead pets, dead dreams, or the need to feel control when the world goes wrong. The forest becomes grief itself, endless and inescapable.
And when the demons finally show up, you realize they’ve been there all along.
The Ending: Hell Is Other People (and Also Film Critics)
By the time the credits roll, you’re unsure if you’ve just witnessed fiction or participated in an occult ritual disguised as cinema. The documentary epilogue doesn’t help—it doubles down, explaining the film’s demonic runes as evidence of Astaroth’s handiwork.
It’s absurd, it’s over-the-top, and it’s absolutely perfect. Because by then, you want to believe. You start eyeing your reflection in the TV screen, wondering if something’s behind you. (Spoiler: it’s probably just your own paranoia. Probably.)
Final Thoughts: A Curse Worth Catching
Antrum is a masterclass in horror mythmaking—a low-budget miracle that turns its limitations into lore. It’s creepy, clever, and occasionally hilarious in its commitment to pretending it’s going to kill you.
Sure, some might find it slow. Others might call it pretentious. But for those who love meta-horror, occult aesthetics, and the thrill of feeling genuinely unsafe in your living room, this is cinematic bliss.
It’s not just a movie—it’s an experience. One that lingers long after the credits, whispering strange frequencies into your brain like an infernal lullaby.
So yes, Antrum might be cursed. But honestly? It’s worth the risk. Because if you’re going to die watching a film, it might as well be one this beautifully damned.
And if you’re reading this review after watching it—well, congratulations. You made it farther than the festival judges.
