ANTRUM: THE DEADLIEST FILM EVER MADE

Stars: Nicole Tompkins, Rowan Smyth, Dan Istrate, Circus-Szalewski, Shu Sakimoto, Kristel Elling and Pierluca Arancio.
Narrated by Lucy Rayner.
Writer: David Amito.
Directors: David Amito, Michael Laicini.

Available in Australia on all digital platforms including Foxtel Store, iTunes, Google Play and FetchTV.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

The 1977 horror film Antrum began to travel the festival circuit in the early 80s. Its legend grew after the strange deaths of several festival programmers, each of whom had only just watched the film. In 1988, a screening in Budapest ended in tragedy, when a cinema appeared to spontaneously combust, killing 56 patrons. In 1993, a San Francisco theatre owner dared moviegoers to defy the cursed movie, only to have a panicked audience flee the screening, trampling a pregnant woman to death. The lone print of Antrum, the deadliest movie ever made, was thought to be destroyed…

In Antrum: The Deadliest Movie Ever Made, Canadian filmmakers David Amito and Michael Laicini challenge doubters of the curse to endure the original film. They begin their potentially lethal resurrection of the work with academic, psychoanalytic and festival director types, who put their own spin on the legend of Antrum; then, a ‘Legal Notice’ fills the screen, exempting all who brought the film to you of any claims should you, indeed, die. The film’s header frames blur by, numbers and scratched images merging…

Antrum is the story of a teenage girl, Oralee (Nicole Tompkins), and her younger brother, Nathan (Rowan Smyth), and the gateway to Hell they uncover while trying to recover the soul of their dead dog, Maxine. The pair head to a clearing in the woods, Nathan having been convinced by Oralee that it is the exact point on Earth where Lucifer landed when God cast him out of Heaven. As they begin to dig, chapter headings herald the uncovering of each new underworld layer, until soon the kids’ fading sense of reality and the exponentially increasing grip of insanity are melding.

I hope it is obvious by now that the legend of ‘The Deadliest Movie Ever Made’ is an intricately staged cinematic con-job; there was no Antrum, the doco is a mocko, and any convoluted backstory about dead Hungarian cinemagoers is pure fiction. But Amito and Laicini ensure it all unfolds in an earnestly told and legitimately chilling manner, both their faux-70s filmmaking technique and pretend ‘experts’ convincing. Though shot entirely in 2018, ‘Antrum’ (Latin for ‘cave’) is an authentically arty, folk-horror facsimile that could have emerged from the distant decade.

As the horror becomes tangible for Oralee and Nathan, so must it have for Tompkins and Smyth; the young actors are, quite literally, put through Hell by their directors. In one shocking scene, Smyth is dragged from a cage and placed in the cast-iron belly of a goat-demon oven. Both are called upon to do hard physical work in the course of their performances, while Tompkins especially conveys the emotional and mental cost of her fight with demonic forces.

There is just enough research afforded the meaning of sigils, pentagrams, biblical references and Latin text to make the ‘cursed film’ construct believable. The film’s bookends - the ‘documentary’ parts - examine key frames, where semi-subliminal imagery of the kind that welcomes demons into our world is revealed. The film is rich with subtext exploring how a young child deals with death, grief and spirituality; ambiguous but compelling parallels are drawn, for example, between Nathan’s connection to Maxine after her passing and his fear and fascination with Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards Hell’s gates.

Most fascinating is the challenge that Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made sets for you, the viewer who wants to know how effective a film that causes madness and death in those that watch it can be. You will register the scratched frames; you may glimpse split-second scenes of torture; you’ll likely see shadows that seem alive, or discordant sounds that unbalance you. Rest assured, it’s all a brilliant fiction; if it wasn’t, this review, deliberately and dangerously leading you astray, would be the work of the Devil...    

NILALANG

Stars: Cesar Montano, Maria Ozawa, Meg Imperial, Yam Concepcion, Cholo Barretto, Dido De La Paz, Kiko Matos, Sonny Sison, Alexandre Charlet and Aubrey Miles.
Writers: Pedring Lopez and Dennis Empalmado.
Director: Pedring Lopez.

Rating: 3.5/5

Pedring Lopez’s blood-soaked romp Nilalang is a wildly enjoyable exercise in mash-up expertise. In equal measure a pulpy Pinoy crime meller and spooky Japanese samurai lark, the Filipino auteur brushes aside some illogical plotting with stunning action set pieces, grim bloodletting and gorgeous animation. Throw in the entirely appropriate casting of a J-porn actress and span 400 years from the pre-credit sequence to end scroll…well, let’s say Lopez leaves nothing on the table in crafting his cult hit in-the-making.

With co-scripter Dennis Empalmado, Lopez uses a dazzling animated sequence that posits his backstory in feudal Japan, 1602. Samurai warriors must protect The Book of Darkness, a tome of Ishi scriptures that capture and carry the slain demon spirits, written in the blood of the legendary ‘Ronin’ soldiers. When the demon Zahagur escapes, leaving a trail of tortured and dismembered victims in its wake, centuries of bloodshed lay before him (the credit sequence, which montages 400 years of man’s inhumanity to man set to a thrash-metal track, coolly suggests Zahagur has chartered the course of mankind’s uglier moments).   

The action transplants first to the port district of Manila, circa 2013, and the take-down of a possessed Japanese criminal Nakazumi (Art Acuna), before settling into the murky, crime-ridden milieu of the present day Filipino capital. A crime scene recalls the brutal methods of the deceased Nakazumi, a coincidence that baffles the NBI Special Crimes Division and its tough-guy anti-hero, Tony (Cesar Montano), who pulled the trigger on the bad guy back in ‘13. With spunky, tough-girl offsider Jane (a terrific Meg Imperial) up for anything, Tony begins to believe that spirits once held captive by The Book of Darkness are out for vengeance and soon those associated with the cop are dropping like flies (or, more accurately, beheaded, disembowelled and face-scalped flies).

Veteran leading man Montano carries himself with a square-jawed, action hero machismo; barring one explosion of emotion in a driving rainstorm, his stoicism in the face of brutal crime scenes, reanimated bad guys and hot women wanting to bed him recalls a granite-like Jean-Claude van Damme in his prime. Said ‘hot woman’ is Maria Ozawa, the former Japanese X-rated star (she retired her AV persona in 2010) making a play at legit drama in the role of Miyuki, an S&M nightclub hostess and descendant of those who wronged Zahagur, who must face-off against the supernatural forces gaining strength.

Or something like that. The convoluted plotting gets a little blurry at times, opening up holes that are never fully closed. The evil spirit is able to possess at will (not unlike the villain in the 1998 Denzel Washington vehicle, Fallen); its vaporous form commands such bit players as an old lady housekeeper, a grave digger and several well-armed bodyguards. Why it doesn’t just take command of Jane or Tony or Miyuki is not clearly addressed.

Not that it really matters, frankly. Lopez is a thrilling visual stylist, filling every corner of his widescreen frame with lush colours and rich detail; DOP Pao Orendain's lensing is world class. Some brutal deaths are etched in the graphic-novel style animation, which proves no less stomach churning; scenes of bare skin torture and gruesome blade work will sate horror buffs (the fate of Yam Concepcion’s pretty young thing Akane is not easily forgotten). Some dialogue is ripe, though it plays well within the 80’s era construct with which Lopez is clearly enamoured. Positively pulsating with ballsy energy, Nilalang carries off a posturing swagger rarely glimpsed in the anaemic mainstream action cinema of today.