Hello, it’s October, so expect alot of horror content for the rest of this month, starting with a movie that I just saw at the cinema. Antebellum is a movie I think I was interested in seeing, but then the pandemic happened and I forgot all about it. So when I saw it pop up for the start of October, I was like: “Wait, is this the movie I wanted to see, or was that something else?” Auuugh! I see too many movies!

Anyway I had no idea what I was walking into, which was probably a good thing because this is a film that enjoys subverting them expectations. I don’t know what I thought this movie was about, but I can’t recall anything about the story taking place during the American Civil War and focusing on a few African American slaves being tormented and bullied by the white supremacy of the southern soldiers. It’s a good opening to the film and the whole first act reminded me of 12 Years A Slave, but with more one dimensional slave drivers!

* Spoilers for this movie up ahead!

I was very surprised when the main slave girl, who we had being following for 30 odd minutes, woke up in modern day America with her husband and their child. This movie does a good job at keeping you on your toes, but the sudden change from the miserable slavery period to good old modern day wasn’t really handled that well. For one, the tension from the first act is completely eradicated once we see she is living the high life. Another, modern day America is so boring! The characters they introduced are somehow worse than the ones from the slave period, for how quickly they bugged me! It mainly feels like pointless fluff, with the only bit of intrigue being how does this connect to the slavery storyline?

Antebellum pulls a Shyamalan on us and it turns out the main character was kidnapped by white supremacists and forced to live in this re-enactment of a Civil War enslavement camp. This was where the movie lost me as I saw the potential of a good premise but they wasted it on a stupid twist that, when you think about it, doesn’t make much sense. What’s the deal with these people? How many of the park workers are in on this, and where does that place the ones who aren’t? Also how does a Civil War re-enactment park have no mobile phone reception? This movie would be so much better if it was told in order and was more like a modern day 12 Years A Slave and not trying to be the next Get Out!

* Spoiler-Free Zone

Moving on from the story, Antebellum also has a really good opening scene, accompanying the opening credits and some very eerie score music. There is some good acting here and there. Also this movie is about racism, which I guess is a good thing, but it offers nothing you wouldn’t already know. Lastly one of the things I did know about Antebellum is it’s billed as a horror movie but it completely fails at that. I guess a movie about slavery is pretty horrific, but you can also find that in 12 Years A Slave, which is way better than this and it isn’t even a horror movie! The only other horror aspects are shown towards the end, and they fall flat thanks to that thing I mentioned in the spoiler section of this post.

Overall I don’t think it’s a bad movie until the ending where it kind of became one. Not a really great start to October, but that’s okay because I asked some of my followers on Facebook and Twitter and for this Halloween they want me to review some horror movies that aren’t complete garbage. Can’t wait for that, but before we get to that, I have something special that I want to re-share with everyone in the coming days. Okay that’ll do for this post, Blog Complainer out!