Among the most surprising titles of 2020 is. Antebellum, a thriller/drama film that makes the racial theme its strong point as well as the connection to horror that hooks into a grim and unshakable reality.
With Antebellum, Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz write and direct their first feature film, which, with its bitter and cruel tones, frames discrimination in both the past and the present, thus providing a continuity of the injustices and pain that have been propagated for centuries until they resurface, unfortunately, in our daily lives.
Built on two different temporal planes, this film of social denunciation embraces two stories that seem to belong to different eras but are closely related. In the first, the protagonist is an African American woman exploited as a slave in the cotton fields in the 1860s, who will suffer repeated violence, physical and psychological, at the hands of slaveholders.
The second story instead sheds light on Veronica Henley (Janelle Monáe), a successful writer and career woman living in New York City in 2020 who is kidnapped.
Starring the talented and flawless Janelle Monáe, the film stands out from the very first minutes with a memorable opening scene, accompanied by a sweeping soundtrack that is then woven into every exciting sequence of the film.
The meaty story of Antebellum holds within it remarkable twists and turns for a very engaging viewing, thanks also to an interesting and unexpected central twist and the whirlwind ending that seems to emphasize the almost surreal side of the story experienced by the protagonist.
Cruel and icy, Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz's film focuses on inhumane acts ranging from abuse, humiliation and torture to branding and the use of a crematorium.
In Antebellum, past and present merge in a story that deploys and at the same time surprises thanks to a spatiotemporal dimension in which colonial and contemporary eras converge and align, complicit in the same mistakes.
In the cast of Antebellum: Janelle Monáe, Kiersey Clemons, Eric Lange, Jack Huston, Gabourey Sidibe (Precious, American Horror Story), Robert Aramayo, Lily Cowles, Marque Richardson, and Devyn A. Tyler.
The film is produced by Sean McKittrick (Escape: Get Out, Us), Raymond Mansfield (Escape: Get Out) and Zev Foreman (Killer Joe) and stars Janelle Monáe and Jena Malone (The Neon Demon, Nocturnal Animals).
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Antebellum (USA - 2020) is one of the new home video releases from the Eagle Pictures. The film is available in DVD, Blu-ray and 4K formats from April 14, 2021.
The DVD and Blu-ray editions are packed with extras (including 8 minutes of deleted scenes) while the Blu-ray edition also features a Making Of of over an hour.
Blu-ray extras:
- Initial sequence plan
- Making of - Facing History
- Deleted scenes
- A hint of horror
- Trailer
