Antlers

Antlers has the makings of a horror film that can use its monsters to symbolism the monstrosities done to its characters. I say “the makings of” because I completely understood the message behind it’s slow-burn creature feature, however, it simply wasn’t able to do enough in either category for me to come away with something particular memorable. It has a wonderful moody setting, gorgeous visuals, strong performances and one hell of a creature design, but it just couldn’t make it all work for me. The marriage of Scott Cooper’s adeptness for human drama through past demons, and Guillermo Del Toro’s mastery over designing characters of myth could have resulted in a masterpiece here, but Antlers spends too much of its time building without the hindsight of payoff.

Based on the short story “The Quiet Boy”, by Nick Antosca, who co-wrote the screenplay, Antlers takes place in a small town in Oregon, where in the prologue, we see Frank Weaver (Scott Haze) running a meth lab out of an abandoned mine. His young son Aiden (Sawyer Jones) waits outside the mine in his truck, Frank and his accomplice are attacked by an unseen creature. Investigating strange noises, Aiden fades into the darkness of the mine before we can see what happens to him. Three weeks later, Frank’s older but still young son, Lucas (Jeremy T. Thomas) spends his time roaming the town, collecting roadkill and killing small animals before taking them home. Lucas’s teacher, Julia Meadows (Keri Russell), is alarmed by Lucas’s strange behavior and unsettling drawings, and attempts to bond with the troubled boy. She begins to suspect that Lucas is being abused and becomes determined to help him, spurred on by her own experience of childhood abuse at the hands of her father. Since her father’s recent suicide, she returned to the town to be with her brother Paul (Jessie Plemons), who is the local sheriff, and whom she feels guilty about abandoning when she was younger. 

Just from the description alone, you can see the theme of abuse, which as many know, is sometimes passed down from the abuser to the victim, who in turn becomes what was done to them as a child. The film’s opening titles tells us of an Wendigo, a creature who prays on the weak and fills their hearts with insatiable hunger which causes them to commit unspeakable acts of violence. I love this idea of using the Wendigo as a symbol of abuse that passes from person to person, possessing them with new and terrible traits of character. Of course the film makes it literal with the idea of the Wendigo changing the person’s body into that of the monstrous figure with antlers, but it was the symbolism that I found intriguing. The problem is that this idea of abuse ends up feeling more like a red herring, supplanted completely by the horrors of Wendigo’s violence. Don’t get me wrong, that violence is compelling, I just never felt as though the film’s themes which populate the majority of its run-time were payed-off. So while I appreciated the character stuff, it never earned its slow-pace, and the Wendigo stuff sometimes felt like a different film all together. This is me though, I’m sure some will find the film a lovely blend of its ideas.

The performances by Keri Russell, Jessie Plemons and especially newcomer, Jeremy T. Thomas, as Lucas, drive home different levels of fear due to trauma. One who had to flee to face it; one who stayed and perhaps never came to terms with it; and one right smack in the middle of the kind of abuse that will stay with you for the rest of your days. The problem in the case of Julia and Paul’s characters is that we only get pieces of their backstory, and that leaves them incomplete. The same goes for Lucas, who may have more to his family relationships, especially his dead mother. I felt the film missed a chance fleshing out (no pun intended) the dynamic with his father and younger brother other than what was on the surface.

Scott Cooper delivers in the atmosphere though. Overcast skies over wilderness gives way to police lights in foggy evenings, and it all looks gorgeous. The film’s tone is appropriately dour with the sense that no matter how much kidness is being shown to Lucas by Julia, happiness will be an uphill battle at best. As far as the creature design, you can tell Del Toro had a huge hand in it. It’s rare that a movie monster lives up to the hype anymore, but Antlers for all of its issues, succeeds there. The final confrontation is lackluster though, despite the fact that the movie explained earlier (in throw away lines) how it was possible for the Wendigo to be in a weakened state.

All in all Antlers misses what could have been a high water mark. Instead we get a film with pieces of potential that was still searching for greatness in the woods…greatness ultimately eluded like an unproven myth.

Grade: C+