PAST PRESENT (ANTEBELLUM)

 

If executed really well, horror movies can provide a searing commentary on contemporary politics and society.

Don Siegel's 1956 original movie of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' and its 1978 Philip Kaufman and 1993 Abel Ferrara played on the paranoia of the Cold War era and the post Cold War military.

Steven Spielberg's 1975 shark masterpiece 'Jaws' featured a small, fearful seaside town under attack from an external threat but also critiqued the craven self interest of the Nixonian Mayor who ran it.

With its shopping mall setting, George A Romero's 1978 zombie flick 'Dawn of the Dead' became a savage commentary about rampant consumerism.

Jordan Peele's creepy 2019 doppelganger tale 'Us' cleverly tackled inequality and exploitation in US society.

While Bernard Rose's 1992 slasher movie 'Candyman' and Peele's 2017 horror satire 'Get Out' dealt with racism in its various manifestations.

Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz wade into similar territory in their latest movie 'Antebellum' but they do so with all the guile and grace of a grizzly bear.

The first third of the film plays out like a gauche remake of Steve McQueen's 'Twelve Years A Slave', with Pedro Luque's camera roaming in slow motion past a Louisiana plantation, past slaves tending to the laundry to Confederate uniformed soldiers capturing Tongayi Chirisa's Eli.

Jack Huston's Captain Jasper also pursues on horseback Eli's wife played by Achok Majak.

In agonising slow motion, Jasper throws a noose which falls around her neck and yanks her to the ground.

He then walks over to her and executes her with a pistol.

The action switches to Janelle Monae's Eden who is branded after being brought to the plantation by Erik Lange's Confederate General Blake Denton who takes her on as his personal slave.

The misery continues when after being taunted by Jasper as they pick cotton in the fields, Kiersey Clemons' new arrival to the plantation Julia and Eden go to a celebratory dinner for the troops where Denton gives a rousing speech about them nearing victory in Washington and re-establishing what he perceives to be the natural order of white supremacy.

Denton concludes his speech by ordering his troops to unwind by eating, drinking and doing whatever they want with the female slaves he has gathered.

This prompts Robert Aramayo's Daniel to confess to his comrades that he finds Julia attractive and egged on by them to have his way with her, it is arranged for him to have a rendezvous with her in a cabin.

Julia appeals to the sense of decency she detects in Daniel but he instead beats her for speaking when she was not spoken to, kicking her in the womb and causing her to miscarry in the cotton fields the following day.

Eden is also raped each night by Denton and lying in bed, the period drama is suddenly disrupted by the sound of a mobile phone.

Suddenly we see her in a contemporary setting, in bed with her husband, Marque Richardson's Nick.

We learn Eden is actually Dr Veronica Hadley, a high profile sociologist and the couple are soon interrupted by their enthusiastic young daughter London Boyce's Kennedi. 

During a breakfast sequence we see Veronica watching a clip of her taking on a politician in a TV debate about race.

She heads to Louisiana to promote her latest book 'Shedding the Coping Persona' in Louisiana and goes out to dinner afterwards with her garrulous pals, Gabourey Sidibe's Dawn and Lily Cowles' Sarah.

However events take such a dramatic turn, Bush and Renz hope it will have the audience questioning reality.

The co-directors, who have also penned the script, have seen their film being marketed as a smart horror thriller in the mould of 'Get Out'.

However the execution of their film is so clunky it only heightens your admiration for the subtle and skilful way Jordan Peele's film went about its business.

By way of contrast, Bush and Renz's three act structure is awkwardly constructed.

Its recreation of plantation violence and oppression is unrelenting and grim, yet it lacks the kind of depth of characterisation on all sides that made 'Twelve Years A Slave' so compelling.

The contemporary sequences are also very poorly written, with the dialogue between Veronica, Nick, Dawn and Sarah lacking authenticity.

You never sense Bush and Renz have a feel for how women actually talk to each other.

The introduction of Jenna Malone's condescending white Southerner Elizabeth in a phone call is also so pantomime villain, it is ear scraping.

Monae does her best with such slim pickings while Lange, Richardson, Houston, Sidibe, Malone, Clemons, Chirisa, Cowles and Aramayo just flounder.

It must be acknowledged that Luque delivers some gorgeous recreations of other movies.

However the assembling of visual nods to other work like 'Roots,' 'Twelve Years A Slave,' 'Glory,' and 'The Shining,' only serves to underline the paucity of the directors' screenplay.

And while Bush and Renz are clearly delighted with the film's big twist, they fail to realise the central conceit in 'Antebellum' doesn't quite pack the same gut punch as 'Candyman' or 'Get Out'.

In a decade that has seen movies like 'Get Out,' Spike Lee's 'Blackkklansman,' Melina Matsoukas' 'Queen and Slim' and Barry Jenkins' 'If Beale Street Could Talk' tackle racism so effectively, 'Antebellum' is a poor attempt to take on similar themes.

In the end, its treatment of the experience of racism and slavery feels as misguided and exploitative as Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained'.

When it is at its worst, their film is incredibly crass.

Audiences deserve much better than this.

They should expect and demand better.

('Antebellum' was released on video on demand services in the US on September 18, 2020  in Australian cinemas on October 1, 2020 and on Sky Cinema and Now TV in the UK and Ireland on April 2, 2021)

 

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