ANTEBELLUM : Tuesday 6th October 2020.

'ANTEBELLUM' which I saw earlier this week is a MA15+ Rated American horror film Directed, Written and Co-Produced by Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz in their feature filmmaking debuts. Originally slated for an end of April release date, this was pushed back due to the impacts of COVID-19 to the 20th August before being temporarily suspended from the release schedule all together. Subsequently, the film was released through video on demand on 18th September in the US, and saw its theatrical release in Australia from last week. Costing US$15M, the film has so far recouped US$4M and has garnered mixed or average Reviews so far. 

The film opens up on a sun drenched day on a Louisiana cotton plantation sometime in the early 1860's during the American Civil War. Run by the Confederate States Army who treat the enslaved black workers with disdain, complete disrespect and with a harsh hand. The slaves are not permitted to speak unless given permission to do so, they are not permitted to speak with one another and any that dare try to escape are quickly captured, killed and then burned in a crematorium. Eden (Janelle Monae) is amongst a group of slaves who has clearly been there only for a short while. She is favoured by the Confederate General (Eric Lange) who treats her harshly and one night brands her on the lower back with a red hot poker, and chastises her for crying out in agony ordering her to stop her whimpering. 

Six weeks later a group of new slaves are carted on to the plantation. Among the new group is a pregnant woman whom the female owner of the plantation, Elizabeth (Jena Malone) calls Julia (Kiersey Clemons). She is placed under the care of Eden. Over the course of her first few days Julia asks Eden to plan their escape, but for Eden timing is everything and instead asks her to lie low and to keep her head down in compliance until the time is right. Shortly thereafter a big dinner is held for all the Confederate Soldiers with the slaves waiting on. 

The General says to his men that the women are there to cater for their every need and want and that they shall not refuse any request. A young and very nervous soldier named Daniel (Robert Aramayo) is introduced to Julia whom he takes a liking to. He is too nervous to talk to Julia so the General intervenes and orders Julia to take him back to her cabin. In the cabin Daniel beats and kicks Julia in the stomach for speaking to him without his permission. The next day Julia miscarries in the cotton field, and the day after that Eden finds Julia hanged from the rafters of her cabin. That night the General rapes Eden, and she falls asleep.

The next morning Eden wakes up to the sound of her mobile phone ringing, but she is not Eden, she is Veronica Henley, a renowned and highly qualified sociologist, and this now serves as the backstory as to how she came to be on a Louisiana cotton plantation in the early 1860's. That morning she is scheduled to fly out of home to Louisiana to speak at a seminar and launch her new book at the same time. Her loving husband Nick (Marque Richardson) and young daughter Kennedi (London Boyce) make a fuss over breakfast. After her presentation to a largely gathered group of black and Asian women, her friends Dawn (Gibourey Sidibe) and Sarah (Lili Cowles) take Veronica out for dinner. In the meantime, Elizabeth, posing as a company representative, sneaks into Veronica's room, rifles through some papers and steals one of her lipsticks. 

After dinner wraps up, the girls gather for a group selfie outside the restaurant just as two Uber's pulls up. Veronica climbs into one for she needs an early night as she has a plane to catch at 6:30am the next morning leaving Dawn and Sarah to catch the second Uber and party on elsewhere. Inside the Uber Veronica is attempting to speak to Nick but the music in the car is turned up high. She asks the driver to turn it down and then notices looking in the rear view mirror back at her it is Elizabeth. From behind, a hand grasps Veronica around the face and she is knocked unconscious by Elizabeth's husband Jasper (Jack Huston). 

Back now on the cotton plantation, Veronica wakes and now doggedly tells one of her fellow male captives Eli (Tongayi Chirisa) that they will attempt an escape later that night. Eli's wife had previously attempted to escape and she was killed and burned in the crematorium as a result. While the General is sleeping, Veronica steals his mobile phone that she had previously seen him angrily speaking into in the early hours of one morning. However, she drops the phone when Daniel is walking by with another soldier, both of whom are more than half drunk. Picking up the phone, the soldiers are perplexed that someone would defy orders by bringing a mobile phone on to the camp when it is strictly forbidden. Veronica and Eli hide in the undergrowth as the two soldiers approach having heard something. One soldier leaves having said it's nothing, leaving Daniel to take a leak. Eli kills Daniel with a hatchet. The pair quickly discover that the phone can only be unlocked with facial recognition, and so Veronica goes back to the cabin to find that the General is awake. 

A fight breaks out and Eli is killed by the General with the hatchet embedded into his heart while trying to protect her. Veronica manages to stab the General with his own sword before unlocking the phone and calling Nick and sending him her location so that he can alert the Police. She pulls down the Confederate flag flying in the grounds and wraps the General's body inside it. She then drags his limp body to the crematorium. Jasper by now has been alerted to the commotion and runs into her. Veronica lures him and another guard into the crematorium and locks the three of them firmly inside, before setting it alight, leaving the men to burn to death as she steals the General's horse and rides off.

Various soldiers all pursue Veronica on horseback shooting at her randomly. They all fall away or succumb to the dense undergrowth, except for Elizabeth who doggedly chases after her. Coming to a clearing Elizabeth reveals that she handpicked every slave on the plantation except for Veronica, whom she kidnapped at her father's insistence and that she would be his jewel in the crown. Veronica knocks Elizabeth off her horse, a fight breaks out with Veronica ultimately gaining the upper hand by putting a rope around her neck, and then dragging her along behind her horse at speed for several hundred meters until she hits the stone plinth of a Robert E. Lee statue, breaking her neck instantly. Veronica flees the pursuing soldiers into the chaos of a battle, revealing that the plantation is actually part of a Civil War lifelike reenactment park owned by the General under his real name, Blake Denton. Veronica escapes as the Police arrive to liberate her and the other captives and the park, named Antebellum, is bulldozed sometime thereafter.

I have to say that I enjoyed 'Antebellum' more than most critics it seems fair to say, did. Whilst hardly a horror film in the true genre meaning of the term, there are certainly moments that can be described as horrific as slaves are either killed or maimed without mercy by their overbearing Confederate masters, but then when a slave gains the upper hand she also meets out her own vengeance without mercy and with just as much violence. The first act labours somewhat as it sets the tone of what is to follow, but the second and third acts certainly make up for the earlier shortfalls as the plot twist comes more into focus. Janelle Monae certainly proves her acting chops in her first major lead role whilst Eric Lange, Jena Malone and Jack Huston all ham it up admirably tarred with the same brush. Gabourey Sidibe looks out of place arriving on the scene as though she has walked into a comedy film, all larger than life, gushing with self confidence, and totally out there (but then I guess she is playing a self help guru here!). There are parallel stories at play here with the cultural oppression and racial discrimination just as evident today as it was 160 years ago, and with this reenactment park being able to fly under the radar of any authorities and get away with murder most foul for God only knows how long, this is surely a metaphor for white supremacists and the BLM movement as it is raging through the US right now. First time Directors Bush and Renz certainly know how to capture and maintain the interest from the opening frames to the last, whilst asking you to suspend all belief that a place like Antebellum can even exist. 

'Antebellum' warrants three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-