In recent years a trend has emerged in the horror genre, the 80’s throwback film. From the Carpenter inspired “It Follows”, to the quirky slasher “The Final Girls” people are hitting the nostalgia button hard and often. We even got a love letter to VHS horror games with the ephemeral “Beyond the Gates”. While these movies were all filled with wistful reminders of a classic era in horror, none of them pushed my “member button” quite like last year’s “Antibirth”. I didn’t see too many people talking about it so I’ve chosen it for my first subject in a series of articles exploring criminally overlooked horror films whose title I am shamelessly stealing from a prestigious newspaper in Boston. So now let’s shine the spotlight on….
Directed by newcomer Danny Perez and starring Natasha Lyonne, Meg Tilly and Chloë Sevigny, “Antibirth” is first and foremost part of the “body horror” sub-genre. While there were certainly films before 1980 that fall firmly into this category such as “The Fly”, “The Incredible Melting Man” and “Shivers”, everyone can agree that the 80’s was the pinnacle of the sub-genre. With David Cronenberg pumping out classic after classic and guys like Frank Henenlotter and Stuart Gordon adding their own unique visions as well, there was certainly never a better time to enjoy some slimy, grimy, oozing pleasure at the expense of those poor unwitting souls who had been cursed by circumstance to have their very bodies turn against them. Thus is the case for Lou, the protagonist of “Antibirth”.
Much like the hero of almost every Henenlotter film, Lou is a girl on the fringes of society. She lives in a hovel and hangs out with degenerates and drug dealers and exists in a perpetual state of drug induced euphoria. When she parties a little too hard one night she wakes up with no memory of the previous evening and unexplained things begin happening to her. Lou finds out she is pregnant, much to her dismay, despite the fact that she claims not to have had sex with anyone in over a year. What follows is textbook body horror by way of an accelerated pregnancy. Between a huge boil on the bottom of her foot to a giant, distended belly, Lou is plagued by extreme versions of every common complaint women have ever had about pregnancy.
In the tradition of the Cronenberg classic “Videodrome” Lou has been swept up in a conspiracy with global implications. She’s been dosed with an experimental drug that has made her uterus the staging ground for an inter-dimensional war. If that sounds absolutely insane to you, it is, and that’s what makes it wonderful. They don’t make weird movies like this anymore. This is a story that would have fit right in not only with the body horror classics but also within the pages of EC comics or even Weird Tales. It has everything. A duplicitous friend, insane hallucinatory dreams, a kooky spirit guide and an ending that is so wonderfully strange that nothing can prepare you for it.
I’ve heard people criticize this movie as disjointed and meandering. These are apt descriptions but I believe they add to the charm. What is happening to Lou is chaotic and the pace of the movie makes you feel it. It plays it’s cards very close to the vest leaving you guessing until it’s absolutely unguessable ending. If you like Lovecraft, Stuart Gordon, Frank Henenlotter, and especially Cronenberg I highly recommend this film. It was high on my list of favorite horror movies of 2016. Check it out.
“Antibirth” is currently available for purchase on Amazon.com.
