Program Note
Viewers are introduced to a cursed film from the 70s with unspeakable tragedies attached, including burning of a full-house cinema in Budapest and suspicious deaths of festival programmers showing it. Film resurfaces after 40 years as fully restored version, in which a boy and his older sister go into the woods to find a sacred place, hoping to resurrect their beloved dog with spells. However, they soon discover that playing with forbidden rites will lead to an opening of pure evil, hell on earth.
With Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, David Amito and Michael Laicini have created a truly unique experimental horror film, by employing retro-look 35mm celluloid aesthetics to give the authenticity of lost film, qualities that viewers accustomed to watching perfect digital images may find intriguing. The actual film is preceded with ‘historical facts’ and ‘testimonies’ to heighten the sense of curiosity and fear, as they unfold the slow-burn ‘film within a film’ through chapters of gradual descending into hell. (Jongsuk Thomas NAM)