Delayed Reaction: Antebellum

Premise: A modern black woman finds herself on a Civil war plantation.

 

Sometimes, there are movies that sound like a bad idea every step of the way. The inspiration comes from a bad joke. The pitch is defiantly shocking. The production has to be protected from out of context stories and photographs. By the time it comes out, it has ruffled so many feathers that it seems doomed to fail. Then, by some miracle, it comes together just right and becomes a resounding success that challenges people and breaks every rule along the way.

 

Antebellum isn't one of those movies.

 

I fully see the appeal. There are few things more horrifying than slavery. America's history with slavery and the long tail of slavery that continued after it is a topic that can't be examined enough. It seems pretty obvious to use slavery as the basis of a horror movie. Unlike a home invasion or being chased by a serial killer, it's a horror that is in virtually all of our family history in some way.

 

However, there is a reason why so few horror movies have touched the topic. It's actually quite hard to make good, thoughtful horror in general. That's fine, because normally, when filmmakers don't succeed at horror, they can fall back on exploitation. When A Nightmare on Elm Street runs out of things to say about teenage insecurity, it can just be a fun slasher movie. Perhaps Final Destination began with a deeper message, but at some point during production, they lost the thread of that, so it was just a dumb thrill-tease about death chasing people. Antebellum doesn't have that luxury. It's either a biting commentary on racial animosity in the U.S. today or it's a movie that uses the horror of slavery for cheap thrills. Unfortunately, it's very much the latter case.

 

This film is broken into three distinct sections. The first part of a generic slave narrative. Janelle Monae is a slave named Eden on a plantation suffering the daily horrors of it. Something is a little off about it. No one is trying that hard to have "slave dialects" like we're used to. A couple people have some style choices that I thought were modern "but maybe they did exist back then". It then cuts to Monae as a successful professor in the modern day. She's a major voice for black rights. On a trip to New York, she gets abducted by some white people who are tired of these black people who keep overstepping. The third act then returns to the plantation and confirms that all the plantation stuff is in the modern day. It's like The Village, but racist, and everyone knows it's a lie. So, Monae eventually makes her escape to realize that this is all a super exclusive part of some sort of Confederate Disney World.

 

The basics sound like they could be good satire or commentary. Yeah, this deep love of the Confederacy is something I find suspicious too. Yeah, white people do talk to black people with a lot of microaggressions. Yeah, slavery IS bad. But the movie doesn't have much more to say after that, and those points are delivered without any subtlety. In other words, they are writing this to be clear for the people who will just roll their eyes at it and tune it our right away. So, what everyone else is left with is meaningless misery porn.

 

Look, Monae is pretty good in the movie for what she's needed. She's out of place on the plantation and very natural in the modern day. She looks great in the revenge scenes. Jena Malone is unfortunately excellent at playing an arch racist Southern woman. Keirsey Clemons is pretty good as one of the newer "slaves" who has a harder time accepting her new situation. It was even nice to see Gabourey Sidibe show up in the modern-day parts, acting like she's in a completely different movie. So, the movie isn't all bad. Some people are pretty decent in it. The big twists are pretty effective on a basic storytelling level. As I referenced before though, this is mostly a horror movie. Like most horror movies, it doesn't all come together beautifully. The tone is muddled and that looks especially bad with this topic. It comes off like they are using slavery for cheap shock value. Really, I just wish this movie had more to say with such an explosive premise.

 

Side Thought: I wish I could understand why Monae hotboxing a bunch of racists to death seems fine to me, yet her dragging racist Jena Malone by rope from her horse feels like it's going too far? I guess it feels more dehumanizing. The hotboxing just plays like forced cremation. The dragging is much uglier and brings up some of the more shocking deaths of black people. I guess it highlighted that this movie wasn't sure whether it was going for exploitation or serious commentary.

 

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend