20 Horror Movies That Were Way Too Cruel
11. Antebellum
Too much torture, not enough plot. That's the best way to sum this one up.
Antebellum was a thoroughly disappointing horror film which took an amazing premise - a modern-day African-American sociologist named Veronica (Janelle Monae) finds herself in a 19th-century Southern slave plantation - and tragically wasted it on a soulless bit of torture-porn.
As if completely bungling its big twist - that Veronica has been taken to a present-day re-enactment of the past - by as good as giving it away halfway through wasn't bad enough, it's also a completely gratuitous slice of ugliness. There was potential here for a trippy, thought-provoking look at the dark side of American history; instead, this devotes nearly all of its run-time to Veronica and the other captives being brutalized in every way imaginable. Sexual assault is even thrown in there, making this whole sorry affair even more exploitative.
Really, this felt more like a torture-porn horror in disguise, and as such, just like its protagonist, Antebellum was stuck in the wrong time. The torture horror boom died out in the late noughties, and this came out in 2020.