Antebellum

"(Even Monáe) can't elevate Antebellum above roots that are firmly planted in the blood and soil of pulp exploitation, shaky liberal earnestness and rank opportunism."

"A travesty of craft and filmmaking with a perspective that hollows out the Black experience in favor of wan horror."

"Antebellum presents the lurid spectacle of a woman's humiliation as if it were a fable of empowerment."

"(Antebellum) leaves an icky taste in your mouth in its leering, exploitative depiction of violent, slavery movie tropes."

"Bush and Renz use blunt force to convey their film's social messaging, and it's at the expense of everything else."

"The horrors of slavery repackaged as entertainment."

"In the end, Antebellum is undone by a lack of empathy and emotion. It has no real perspective on the past and thus fails to make any real impact on the present."

"Antebellum might have been a movie that met this awful moment, but its confused attempt at seeing yesterday in today resolves as a throwback to a time when anyone could actually overlook it in good faith."

"If only the filmmakers trusted their actors to convey the messages of this story, instead of burdening them with obvious, explanatory lines and speeches."

"Antebellum feels curiously unfinished. Rushed, even. You catch a glimpse of what the filmmakers are going for here, but never entirely buy it."

"The star works valiantly to channel Eden/Veronica's pain and confusion, and the whole humanity of a life her captors so casually dismiss. As a performer, she commits utterly; if only the story could do the same."

"While Antebellum is no zombie movie, it treats systemic racism as a kind of contagion that refuses to die, eating the brains of successive generations. There’s only one way to stop it, and that’s by blowing the minds of all those infected — which is precisely the impact Antebellum achieves."