Nobody really likes hospitals. They’re a necessity (and that’s been especially obvious in the past year or so) but the idea of actually going to a hospital? Terrible. I will put it off until the last minute, much like protagonist Sharyn Berkley (Ashlynn Yennie) in 2021’s Antidote. Unfortunately, there are some things you shouldn’t try to tough out – appendicitis being a big one.

Antidote wastes very little time on exposition, throwing us right into the action as Sharyn wakes up in agonizing pain and is rushed to the hospital by her concerned husband (Yorgos Caramihos). She goes under for a routine appendectomy, then wakes up somewhere else entirely. The hospital room is now grey and barren, more like a prison infirmary than the hospital she was in originally. Stranger still, her surgical incision is almost entirely healed. But when she asks her new doctor, Aaron Hellenbach (Louis Mandylor), how long she’s been there, his gentle reply is, “Not long at all.”

Sharyn comes to learn quickly that not all is as it seems at this “hospital,” where none of the patients are sure how they got there and all have ugly pasts. Screaming echoes through the hallways as patients are brutally experimented on, then healed within days by a mysterious amber serum. Doors don’t lead where they should, there are no working phones, and patients have visions of people and things that can’t possibly exist. And why is so much of the signage in Latin?

Though many of the patients have become resigned to their fates, Sharyn is defiant. This is NOT okay, and nothing is going to stop her from finding justice. But is it possible that there isn’t any justice to be found?

Antidote is not what you might expect from medical horror. It’s definitely gory and gross and anxiety-inducing in a myriad of ways, but a last-act twist swoops in and turns everything on its head, which takes the movie from okay to great. And, best of all, it’s a thoughtfully done plot twist that makes perfect sense when you look back at the rest of the movie. Antidote knows what it’s doing, and relies very little on cheap scares. At times, the acting is a little better suited to a stage production than a feature film, and one actress has a very obvious bald cap on, but these small issues are easy enough to overlook. The writing is sharp and the music is absolutely fantastic, with a score that doesn’t sound generic and was clearly written for the movie it’s in.

I don’t want to spoil too much because every twist deserves to pack its fullest punch, but as long as you’re not too bothered by needles, blood, copious amounts of dismemberment, and hanging via piano wire, then Antidote is absolutely worth the watch when it comes out on April 15, 2021.

8 out of 10