Review: Antebellum

Antebellum (2020) is billed as a horror film. It was written and directed by Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz. The film opens on a Southern plantation which has apparently been commandeered by a Confederate platoon or whatever a group of Confederate soldiers is called. As we begin, we bear witness to a lynching. A slave has attempted an escape, and is being brought to what I’m sure slave owners would have called “justice.” As a group of soldiers drag the man away, the senior ranking officer, Captain Jasper (Jack Huston) shoots the slave’s wife dead, and drags her corpse behind his horse.

In the next scene we are introduced to Eden (Janelle Monáe) who is also a slave on this plantation. She is dealing with a very angry Confederate soldier. One who is not Captain Jasper. The soldier abuses, beats, and ultimately brands Eden as punishment for her transgressions. Also as a means to his own depraved psychological ends.

More scenes of plantation life follow. Soon a new group arrives at the plantation. Among them is Julia (Kiersey Clemons). Julia is with child, and is made a ward of Eden by plantation matriarch Elizabeth (Jena Malone). Julia is hot to get out of there and implores Eden to help her escape. Eden is not into that idea as she does not foresee a positive outcome.

Later that night, the confederate troops all gather for dinner under a large tent. Slave girls line the periphery of the dining area. Captain Jasper informs his troops that the women are there to attend the every whim of the troops. Julia is selected by Captain Jasper to be the consort of Daniel (Robert Aramayo) for the evening. Daniel has a bashful manner, and seems to be made to blush when presented with the notion that he should defile this woman following dinner.

Later in their cabin, Julia speaks to Daniel in a candid manner, having mistaken his shyness for kindness. Daniel erupts in rage, beating and kicking Julia, who miscarries as a result. Meanwhile, Eden is raped. After this, she wakes up in a modern day bed in a modern day world as a modern day author named Veronica.

Is this the same woman from the plantation? Are the plantation and the swank, high-rise apartment somehow connected? Will the last sixty-five minutes be as gratuitously exploitative as the first forty? What the fuck is going on? These questions, and so many more you will have will all be answered before the conclusion… of Antebellum.

A conclusion that couldn’t arrive swiftly enough.

Alright, let’s just get this out of the way first. We, of the world today, live in interesting times. This is not a positive affirmation. It is recognition of a curse. People have all kinds of opinions, and they vary greatly. One thing I’m sure most of us could agree on, no matter which section of the ideological spectrum we occupy, that 2020, the year, is fucked. This film deals with a lot of the stuff that occupies the nightly news cycle. It is a politically charged film that has a point to make (I think).

So, fair reader, be forewarned. As you read on, and I rip this stinkbomb to pieces, understand that none of my complaints have anything to do with the politics of this film. Understand, Antebellum was a complete failure, structurally speaking, and I am making no comment in one direction or the other in regards to the films ideology. I will only be commenting on the successes and failures of the film from a technical perspective. So, as there isn’t much of it, let’s start with the good.

Cinematographer Pedro Luque Briozzo was magnificent. Lots of quality shots in this film. The composition was beautiful. Many of the shots felt important, as if Briozzo recognized the weakness of the script, and tried to fix that with eye-catching, dramatic imagery. The look of the film, and the skill with which it was accomplished, is the thing most worth sticking around for.

Credit is also due to both Janelle Monáe and Gabourey Sidibe, who are both wonderful. Sidibe plays Veronica’s friend Dawn. Despite the character being both totally pointless and a walking stereotype, Sidibe manages to steal every scene she is in. Equally impressive is Janelle Monáe, who in gratuitous, wheel-spinning scene after gratuitous, wheel-spinning scene, swings for the fences. Her performance in the film is almost double incredible, because for a film so devoid of substance, she manages to bring the heat in all of her scenes.

That’s about where the good stuff stops. The most noteworthy issue I had with Antebellum was that it utterly lacked any kind of story whatsoever. This thing was billed as a horror film, but it wasn’t a horror film, it was just exploitation. It was violent for the sake of being violent ,not for the sake of advancing a narrative.

I’m not sure how the filmmakers secured the money to make this thing. By the look of things it likely wasn’t cheap. However Bush + Renz, as they are preposterously referred to in the trailer, seem to have forgotten that each scene in a film should set up the next scene and keep the story moving along. Although, why would they remember that when there wasn’t any story at all to need to keep moving forward.

For nearly its entire runtime, Antebellum is just scene after scene reinforcing the same idea. Beating it into your head over and over again, but never actually developing anything. About an hour in, I wondered to myself, when is this movie going to start? And wasn’t this supposed to be a horror film?

I discovered that the film starts about ten minutes before it ends. And that every meaningless scene of POC’s being treated poorly by white folk culminates in a moronic and ineffective twist that would make M. Night Shyamalan wretch. The first hour and a half exists to setup one ridiculous gag at the end that concludes with one of the most unintentionally hilarious ending sequences I’ve ever seen. Its ridiculousness is outstripped only by the magnitude of its stupidity.

As I endured this trainwreck, I couldn’t help but think that Bush + Renz must have really believed that they were doing important work. That not only were they crafting a horror masterpiece worthy of inclusion among the best titles of the current era, but that they were making a powerful statement about race relations in America. What they made was an hour of slave porn, and another 45 minutes of the worst kind of ultra-corporate faux-woke trash Hollywood has ever shat out and allowed to run down its leg.

Additionally, Bush + Renz must not have thought very highly of their audience. They must think we are really stupid, if they thought we were gonna swallow this crap. Did they really think anyone with a brain was going to sit there and slap their fins together like trained fucking seals with every played out, Facebook-worthy, SJW meme they tossed into our gaping mouths like so much Herring? Like, I get it, white people bad. I only needed 4 or 5 scenes of slaves being raped to figure that out. When is one of these chapters of torture porn going to actually advance any kind of plot, or enlighten me to something I wasn’t already profoundly aware of?

But hey, this is 2020. right? Why try and craft a provocative story with a nuanced execution, that deals with heavy, challenging themes, when you can just try to whip the audience into a frenzy with shock at the gratuitous violence, and beat them over the head with slogans?

And don’t you believe for a second that this is a horror film. I mean in any capacity other than that slavery was a horrific thing. I mean, the ghost of a little girl does show up twice, and quite pointlessly. That does not a horror film make in my book. When you are over an hour into this thing and the most horrific and terrifying element is our heroines getting a shitty table at a restaurant, you have to question why you are even watching the goddamn thing in the first place.

The biggest bummer, is that there are so many cool things they could have done. So many interesting directions that they could have taken this thing in. There was so much potential. All of which was utterly pissed away. Like, if you’ve got a fire burning in your soul, and you want to make a statement about racial or social inequities in this country, then do it! Tell me a real fuckin’ story. One that is going to provoke me to think about something I hadn’t before, or in a way I hadn’t before, or make me privy to a viewpoint that I was previously unable to see. The most significant item on Antebellum’s agenda seemed to be making sure the audience knew that slavery was bad. Apparently Bush + Renz are unaware that most of us already knew that. And the people that think otherwise aren’t likely to be convinced.

This is getting long, so I’ll bottom line it right here. Antebellum is unadulterated trash. It is a film that, to quote the Godfather of Soul, is just talkin’ loud and saying nothing. Each scene in the film exists not to advance the plot, but to be consumed, and enjoyed with voyeuristic revelry. The filmmakers might present themselves as wanting to not dull the ugliness of the violence, in pursuit of some kind of truth. I call bullshit on that. Films like Saló or The 120 Days of Sodom (Passolini, 1975) and Man Bites Dog (Belvaux, Bonzel, Poelvoorde, 1992) use graphic, unsettling violence as a means to provoke the audience into deeper consideration of their underlying themes. It seems to me that Bush + Renz enjoy provoking either purely for the sake of provocation, or because it gets them off. Maybe both. One thing is true about the violence in this film, it certainly was left completely unspoiled by any story elements.

The film is slow, plodding, dubiously self-important, an absolutely crushing bore, and the only thing more idiotic than its conclusion is the fact that someone paid money to have this film made. Antebellum is basically a painfully unsuccessful mashup of Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2009), and The Village (M. Night Shyamalan, 2002), that nobody ever asked for. If you are looking to watch a film that deals with race, and you find yourself thinking about watching Antebellum, I beg you to reconsider. You could do so much better. There are great films that you could watch instead. Please give some thought to seeking out one or more of those. Or if you are just looking to see people abused, the internet is chock-a-block with pornography. Why not eliminate the middle man and get right down to brass tacks?