Metacritic reviews

Antibirth is novel, mysterious, and sometimes even dangerous enough to suck you in if you surrender to its confrontational, avant garde style.

Antibirth is intentionally ramshackle and hallucinatory as storytelling, seen through the viewpoint of characters who are mostly too stoned to concentrate – but it’s also highly crafted and unsettling.

Had the movie been just a little more thought through, it could have been a new classic. Antibirth is still quite good, though, with memorably surreal imagery and an abrasive texture that enhances Perez’s overall vision. As a portrait of a middle America full of forgotten people and ruined civilizations, this is one of the year’s scariest movies.

Perez’ style is like a less-serious David Lynch, which is a nice comparison for a first-timer. Not all of his scenes nail that eerie surrealism, but he’s got a knack for a well-placed prop and the right timing for a dopey gag to come in and pop the balloon of suspense.

Although often narratively cryptic and stylistically uneven, Antibirth could serve to establish Perez’s reputation in low-budget horror.

Despite being energetic even if it wears out its welcome and fascinating even as it frustrates, it never quite commits to a tone in true punk rock spirit.

It’s unfortunate that the only part of the film that works does so by taking the wind out of the rest of it.

Thankfully, what it does have is Natasha Lyonne, who almost singlehandedly keeps this misconceived endeavor afloat, or at least not actively unwatchable.

Which is why Antibirth feels more like an anti-film, a piss-poor assembly of remarkable cult actors and brazen narratives that start off divorced without ever being married.

In his director’s statement, Mr. Perez, who also wrote the script, says he sought to fashion a story “that would confuse and bludgeon the audience.” My comrade and I will sip, silently nod and, with a strange kind of awe, agree: This filmmaker succeeded.