When the movie that is screening is described as the deadliest film ever made, the audience’s expectations have been raised. Then the festival handling the screening is handing out indemnity agreements to protect themselves if the film kills you. There comes a point where you have to wonder if this is extreme marketing or if you are actually about to be cursed by a lost film. Without a doubt, the film had a lot to live up to and the audience was ready to be wowed. Did it succeed, did it fail, either way, it wouldn’t matter if the audience didn’t survive Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made.

The film opens with a documentary segment, further stressing that what we are about to see is real. We are then introduced to film historians and cinephiles that tell the audience the dark history of the film. Filmed and produced in the 1970s the first screening of Antrum in 1988 at a theater in Budapest Hungary ended in the deaths of 56 people. From there every film festival critic and screening has ended in the deaths of the viewers of the film. With one final warning to the audience, a 30-second timer appears giving everyone a chance to leave before it is too late.

The film’s story is about a young boy and his teenage sister who travel to a supposedly cursed forest known for suicides. They are looking for the Antrum, the spot where Satan fell from heaven that is a direct path to Hell. The boy hopes to save his dog’s soul after being put down by his mother for biting him. Armed with a mysterious book made by the sister under the instructions of a mysterious man they journey into the forest alone. As the film goes on we begin to question if they are indeed alone, or if the dark forces of the Antrum are being released in their attempts to dig to Hell.

Antrum‘s strengths come from incredible dedication to the idea that it is indeed a lost 70s horror and the presentation that goes with that idea. Throughout the film we see weird symbols pop up occasionally and unrelated footage that has been “added” to the film. In the credits, we are informed that there has been a strip of plastic with runes and inscriptions on the film the whole time. Some of the audience that I talked to felt like those segments were forced, but I feel like they add just the right amount of unsettlingness to their respected scenes. The idea that this lost film has been tampered with over the years adds an air of eerie mystery to the whole film.

From the legend of this killer film to the symbols, runes, and hidden messages littered throughout it, Antrum is dripping with subtle horror and mystery. The story of these kids arriving in the forest only to have the horror keep escalating is tense and unnerving. Beginning with a Blair Witch mystery and evolving into a Texas Chainsaw Massacre horror, you begin to wonder if the kids will survive this trip. It is a film that keeps the audience guessing where the story is going to go, complete with a fake ending near the end. I personally cannot wait to own this film, share it with my friends, and solve more of the mystery of Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made.