SOUTHERN GOTHIC

Janelle Monáe leads the way in a sinister social horror with a twist, which blends harrowing scenes of pre-Civil War slavery with a presentday look at contemporary life in New Orleans. Total Film meets the creators and stars of Antebellum, who say the film’s themes couldn’t be more urgent…

- ADAM TANSWELL

Horror movies and nightmares often go hand-in-hand, so it might be unsurprising to hear that Antebellum was inspired by a stressful, sweat-soaked dream. “I’d like to say we created the movie out of a strategic thought process,” reveals Gerard Bush, who is one half (alongside Christopher Renz) of the writing and directing duo behind the film. “However, the idea really came from a nightmare I had a couple of years ago. In the dream, it felt like this woman – Eden – was trying to reach me through a cross-dimensional journey of desperation in order to liberate herself from her tormentor. I was in tears when I awoke from the nightmare, but I quickly wrote everything down. The next day, I wrote a short story about it with Christopher. The script was then built from that story.”

There’s a lot of mystery surrounding the plot of this psychological thriller. Very few details have been revealed, other than the fact that the story delves into potent themes of race, slavery and power. “I think this film will trigger a lot of people,” admits Janelle Monáe on a Zoom video call from Los Angeles. “For me, it was cathartic and important to go through this journey. Going through this subject matter, I felt very tested as a human being – but I did it for my ancestors. I did it for all of the strong Black women who came before me; all of the women who had to endure pain and suffering, and still they persevered through it. It was therapeutic, it was difficult, it was traumatic. In real life, I would never want to go through what I had to go through in Antebellum.”