Saturday, November 30, 2019

Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made


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In case you haven’t seen the intro from my entry dated 1/26/19 (it’s in my archives whenever you want to read it), I’m no longer going to review every single movie I see.  I’m going to review one, with the occasional bonus, and just give ratings for the rest from now on (unless I decide to pick it up again in the future).  You can always ask me why I gave the ratings for the films without reviews though (via comments or the e-mail addresses under the ‘About Me’ section).
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Antrum:  The Deadliest Film Ever Made                    G
If you are a horror fan and read up on any kind of horror news, chances are you’ve heard of this film.  If not, or you are not a horror fan, I’m glad to be the source you hear about it from (more so if you like it, of course).  It begins and ends as a mockumentary regarding a faux film titled Antrum that “came out” in the late Seventies and why it was dubbed The Deadliest Film Ever Made.  A curse was supposedly attached to the film itself that proved fatal for some of its viewers and we’re presented with a “found copy” of the film, thus making the bulk of this feature the movie itself involving a young brother and sister trying to enter Hell in order to get their recently deceased dog back.  To get to Hell, they go into the woods to the exact spot where the devil was allegedly cast out of heaven and start digging.  Now, when I heard this involved the devil and Hell, I was instantly curious.  I don’t believe in Satan, mind you, I’m just fascinated with all the mythology surrounding it (being a horror nut, are you really surprised?).  Put it this way, I’m not going to say there’s no Heaven or Hell (I lean more towards agnostic than atheist), but I won’t believe in any kind of afterlife or deity until I see it with my own eyes (yes, seeing is believing).  Anyway, this film appeared to be Satanic at times, but I thought it was equally, if not more of, a backwoods horror flick in the vein of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and such.  Fitting since it “came out” around the time such movies were popular and right before the Satanic Panic of the Eighties.  There’s a demonic goathead contraption that reminded me very much of The Wicker Man, but I liked it better than either version’s figure and it could very well become iconic.  The film itself also looks very much like it could’ve been made in the Seventies and had I come across it separated from this feature, I might’ve thought it actually came out during that time and isn’t too bad on its own.  It is flawed for sure, like many of its actual ilk, but I was intrigued more often than not.  11/26/2019


Bonus reviews:


Klaus                                                                           G
A new Netflix movie that’s animated and also a Christmas movie.  I actually liked it too!  I wish it was even better than it was, but I did not allow my inner Scrooge to get the better of me.  The animation is generally crisp and exquisite; something rare these days unless coming from Disney or Pixar and such.  It concerns a man forced by his father to go live on a remote island until he can stamp 6,000 letters at the post office, lest he’s permanently cut off.  This dreary island (I forget the name of it) is freezing, contains two large families that have been at war with each other for centuries, and none of the children attend school.  Do you think by the end the families will reconcile (at least some of them), the kids will be attending school, and the town will be more jubilant than it once was?  Of course the answer is yes to all the above and you and I should know that, but that’s all beside the point, at least circumstantially.  Apparently Christmas has always been around, but this movie charmingly portrayed how Santa Claus came to be the one delivering presents to good children on the holiday (bad children get a lump of you know what).  There were no religious affiliations presented, making this completely about the secular aspects associated with Christmas (or, arguably, the pagan aspects as many don’t realize that that’s how the holiday began, allegedly).  It was ultimately refreshing to see a new Christmas film, animated or not, that’s good and that the whole family can enjoy.  I can sort of see this becoming a holiday classic and when the youth a couple generations from now talk about how much they like it and watch it annually, I’m going to be able to tell them I remember when it first aired (if I’m still alive, of course).  11/27/2019



The Shed                                                                     OK/G
Starting off with a vampire attack in which the vampire itself looks like it stumbled off the set of Salem’s Lot (the 1979 version, mind you, even though I don’t have too many nitpickings with either that or the 2004 version), I thought I was going to love this movie.  Well, as you can probably guess by my past-tense hints, I didn’t exactly love it.  I definitely didn’t dislike it either.  I liked the main character and the film’s simplistic attempts, but I don’t think it should’ve been as long as it was, or maybe even a feature-length film at all.  It’s fairly standard for a while---someone wanders into or near the titular shed and they get attacked by the vampire that took shelter in it after being bitten by the aforementioned Salem’s Lot-ish vampire right before dawn (because you know what happens to vampires in the sunlight; at least ones that don’t sparkle).  It does switch things up a bit by simultaneously being a teen movie with bullies and whatnot, and when the action moves into the house at the end and our protagonist has more than the “shed vamp” to contend with.  Much like the aforementioned Stephen King-adapted vampire tale (I’m mainly referring to the 1979 version), this wasn’t one of the best vampire films I’ve seen, but it’s absolutely still watchable.  11/27/2019



Other movies I've seen and their ratings (see above):

Cold Blood  >>>EH/OK

Don’t Let Go  >>>OK/G

Hounds of Love  >>>OK

The Irishman  >>>EH
            (Netflix)

John Wick:  Chapter 3 – Parabellum  >>>OK


---Sean O.
11/30/2019

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