Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made is allegedly a cursed movie, and was recently released for anyone interested in testing that theory.
Antrum is a film within a film, done up in a mockumentary style. It starts with an approximately 8-minute documentary detailing the history and tragedies surrounding the film and then moves on to the film itself. There are plenty of warnings that the movie is potentially dangerous prior to watching and has suggestions to proceed with caution. The actual film surrounds two young siblings that go into the woods and dig a hole into hell to save the soul of their recently-deceased dog.
It's hard not to think of something like The Blair Witch Project when looking at Antrum's approach, but the film is its own bizarre beast. The supposedly cursed film looks as if it's pulled right from the 70s, which is completely intentional; the date scribed on the credits of the film tells the viewer that it was made in 1979. It was allegedly lost for years until it popped up again, out of nowhere, ready to be seen again. Initially released in early February of 2020 in Japan, Antrum is now available digitally on iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon.
Antrum Is Allegedly Responsible For Nearly 60 Deaths
As the story goes, people who see Antrum die shortly afterward. The most notable instance happened in 1988 in Budapest when it was being screened for the first time. The small theater the film was being shown at burned down, killing the 56 people inside. During the documentary portion of Antrum: The Deadliest Film on Earth, it was allegedly confirmed that the fire itself didn't come from the projectionist's booth, as similar fires tend to. Instead, several fires broke out from within the audience itself. The prelude to the film also details three additional deaths and injuries putting Antrum at fault.
While Antrum is unique in its execution, the story of a film that kills you is anything but. For most, 2002's The Ring or the 1998 original, Ringu, come to mind, where a video tape will kill someone in seven days if they don't make a copy of it and pass it along. But possibly more aligned with Antrum is John Carpenter's segment on the show Masters of Horror, called Cigarette Burns. It also is based around a mysterious and rare film, La Fin Absolue Du Monde, that was once screened, and resulted in nearly the entire audience murdering each other. It's later discovered that Satan himself was the producer of the film.
Antrum Isn't Actually Cursed - Or Is It?
The curse and story behind the film 100% fabricated, though it makes for good marketing and promotional buzz to claim otherwise. While directors David Amito and Michael Laicini had hoped to capitalize on its "deadly" reputation, Eric Thirteen from the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival discovered the film in 2019 via word of mouth. Everyone was talking about this movie, but nobody could track it down, which only added to the folklore surrounding the film - if it was so hard to find, could it possibly be real? For a while, it was toted around as something that could only be seen by industry insiders, and was treated similarly to films like Cannibal Holocaust and A Serbian Film - its reputation preceded it, and amplified its mystery. While it'll likely never surpass classics like The Blair Witch Project, which also became infamous for similarly clever marketing, found footage is hard to get right. For the most part, Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made performs serviceably.