A small-town Oregon teacher and her brother, the local sheriff, discover that a young student is harbouring a dangerous secret with frightening consequences. Release date: 29 October 2021 (United Kingdom) Director: Scott Cooper Produced by: Guillermo del Toro; David S. Goyer; J. Miles Dale Production companies: Phantom Four; Double Dare You Productions Based on: "The Quiet Boy"; by Nick Antosca Music by: Javier Navarrete Stars: Keri Russell Jesse Plemons Jeremy T. Thomas Some people say the thrill of waiting, the excitement of anticipation, is almost as good as the real thing. I say that's a load of nonsense. I have been waiting to watch Antlers since it was first announced nearly a year ago. When the first trailer dropped on social media, I was captivated by it, the trailer stuck in my head, and I couldn't shake it out. When the distributors announced that the cinematic release of Antlers had been pushed back due to that bloody pandemic, I started to get worried. There have been far too many occasions over the years where a film has been put back for different reasons. The reality of the delay was due to the film just not being all that good, and the studios were waiting for a lull in releases to use the film as a schedule filler. I was anxious and concerned, but I was also hopeful that the delay wasn't down to the film being below par. Hell, it shouldn't be. It was directed by Scott Cooper, a director who has proved that he is capable of delivering excellent and gripping films. It was based on a cracking short story from "The Quiet Boy"; by Nick Antosca, and it also had Guillermo del Toro; David S. Goyer; J. Miles Dale as producers (Although I have to admit, I'm still not sure how much input producers have on the final product). The question is Antlers a twelve-point stag, or is Antlers a hornless mess of a movie? In Antlers, a small-town Oregon teacher Julia Meadows (Keri Russell), and her brother, Paul Meadows (Jesse Plemons), the local sheriff, become entwined with a young student Lucas Weaver (Jeremy T. Thomas), who is harbouring a dangerous secret. Lucas is caring from his father and his younger brother, who, after an incident in a meth lab in one of the town's many disused mines, are now locked in the attic in the run down familial home, with Lucas scavaging what he can to feed himself and his wards. When Julia leads a class about the power of fairy tales, she notices a pattern of behaviour in Lucus which mirrors a life that she had thought she had left behind many years ago. Believing that Lucas is the victim of parental abuse, she decides to take him under her wing and save him from the life she found so hard to escape from; little does she know that the trauma and abuse she sees is not the result of an abusive parent, but something much darker and sinister. This won't be a spoiler as it is made relatively clear that Juia and her brother are about to square up to a hugely underused horror trope, The Wendigo (click here for more information). Soon, Julia and her brother are faced with a battle for the humanity of Lucas and the lives of everyone in the town as the Wendigo empowered father escapes from his prison and begins to feast on everything that crosses his path. Antlers is a dense and bleak film, and a lot is going on in the movie; I refuse to call it elevated horror as that s such a pretentious and gate-keeping term used by people who don't understand what horror is or is capable of delivering, however, Antlers is more than your usual monster in the woods or my relation has become possessed by some monstrous entity.  Antlers is a film that is bathed in guilt, from the guilt that Jilia feels about leaving her brother to the abuse bestowed on the pair of them by her father, to the guilt that Pauls feel for just wanting a family, to the guilt of the population at large for the destruction the town has brought down on the local land. This all plays heavily on the movie's feel; overriding Antlers' brutal, horrific elements is a powerful and claustrophobic sense of melancholy. Even the incredible panoramic shots of the local landscapes are tainted with it. What should have beautiful shots of a gorgeous location become bleak, grimy shots of a landscape that has been stripped of all of its natural beauty at the hands of the townsfolk. There are no glorious shots of a summer lake. Instead, we see vast swathes of muddied land, a town that is dirt, damp, and cold. I'd be interested to know which came first, the idea to use the Wendigo as the creature, or if the source material slotted the Wendigo in after the main themes of the story had been put on paper. I ask this question as to the Wendigo as a creature has mythologically been used as a force of retribution against those who value greed, gluttony and power over everything else. As the local sheriff explains "The ancestral spirits have been here long before us and will be here long after," "And now they're angry." Either way, Antlers is a powerful film that, even now, I am still trying to unpack many film elements four days after watching it. Was it worth waiting a whole year to watch Antlers? Did the anticipation sour the payoff? To put it simply, it was indeed worth waiting this long to watch it. Antlers hit the mark in nearly every aspect; I have a few issues with it, but as a whole, Antlers is a powerful, thought-provoking horror film that also delivers on the scares. The acting from the main leads is spectacular; Keri Russell as Julia Meadows delivers a faultless performance as a broken woman who is still suffering from the abuse she suffered as a kid. The tiny nuances in her acting are captivating; there is one scene in the local grocery shop where she eyes the shelf of spirits behind the cashier; you can feel the pain of her struggle with alcoholism at this point. As a scene, it is perfect; her stellar acting, combined with a clever micro-tracking shot, is a highlight of the film. Odd, I know that in a horror movie, I pick a simple and relatively innocuous scene, but it achieves exactly what it was meant to do by showing the fragility of her character. Jesse Plemons as Paul also delivers a first-class performance, whereas Russell's performance is all about the subtle nuances; Plemons infuses his character with an almost pound puppy persona. He is desperate for his relationship with his sister to be fixed; he wants the family he never had growing up. Thankfully Plemons never allows his delivery to turn into a sentimental tea-time drama performance. Jeremy T. Thomas, as Lucas, wow! That's the first thought you will have about this young actors performance. Quite how such a young actor can channel that amount of grief, guilt and heartache into a performance that is so powerful, you will become fully invested in his story. As mentioned earlier, the cinematography of Antlers is first class, and it plays just as an essential role in the success of the story both in terms of watchabilty and as a tool for exploring the film's themes. Sound is also an essential factor in a horror movie; however, the soundtrack to many horror films has become somewhat of an annoyance to me in recent years. There has been a reliance on that one or two-note drone that seems to have permeated into almost evet film. I don't know how to describe it better, but you will know exactly what I mean; it's generally used on long tracking shots as a car travels a long lonely road. Javier Navarrete's soundtrack has a lightness of touch that dumps the typical cliched musical queues for more inspired music in a horror film. Cooper's direction is tight if a little bit too reliant on signposting the viewer as to what is to come and allowing the characters to make decisions that will have some of you scratching your heads at their stupidity. I'm looking at the school's headteacher in particular here, but I will leave it that. The directorial direction gave me my only genuine gripe about the film, the use of Graham Greene as the sheriff. I will give everyone involved in the film fair credit, as they reportedly did their due diligence with regards to the mythology of the Wendigo, and by all accounts even used the guidance of the indigenous people whose ancestors were the originators of the mythology with regards to its use in the film. This is all very good, but having Greene as the only indigenous character in the movie and using him as the mystical person of colour for a massive info dump felt disingenuous to both his ancestors and the Wendigo. As a horror movie, Antlers delivers on all fronts; there is a fantastic sense of brooding despair that stretches from the opening scene right through t the end of the film. Those looking for some more bloody and shocking elements in their horror film won't be disappointed either. Antlers has some genuinely shocking scenes. Thankfully the director doesn't rely on the curse of horror films; the jump scare is all but eliminated from this film. I don't want to give too much away about the Wendigo creature design; suffice to say that I was more than happy with the dry, almost mummified depiction of it. My only gripe here is in the film's finale; the creature suffers a bit from looking like a videogame rendition. Overall, Antlers is a powerful horror movie that will scare you almost as much as make you think about what you have just watched. In a year of great horror movies, Antlers stands head and horns above most of the competition. Antlers is a film I will return to many times again Final Grade A TODAY ON THE GINGER NUTS OF HORROR WEBSITE CHILDHOOD FEARS: THE CHILD OF SATAN BY RYAN HUNT the heart and soul of horror movie reviews |
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