By: Andrew Wing

Antlers is a 2021 supernatural horror film directed by Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Black Mass, Hostiles). It follows a school teacher and her sheriff brother in a small Oregon town, where they discover one of her students is harboring a supernatural creature. The film stars Keri Russell (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Americans) as the school teacher Julia Meadows, Jesse Plemons (Breaking Bad, Fargo, I’m Thinking of Ending Things) as Julia’s brother, Paul Meadows, Jeremy T. Thomas as Lucas Weaver, the young student harboring the creature, and also features Graham Greene (Dances with Wolves, Wind River), Scott Haze (Child of God, Only the Brave), Rory Cochrane (Dazed and Confused, Argo), and Amy Madigan (Field of Dreams, Gone Baby Gone).

The screenplay, written by C. Henry Chaisson, Nick Antosca (co-creator and showrunner for The Act), and Cooper, was adapted from Antosca’s short story “The Quiet Boy”, originally published in Guernica magazine in January 2019. The film was also produced by some pretty big names like David S. Goyer (wrote the screenplays for the Blade trilogy, Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, and Man of Steel) and J. Miles Dale (served as a producer on The Shape of Water and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark), but none bigger than Guillermo del Toro (director of Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim, and The Shape of Water).

The project was announced in July 2018 with Cooper attached to direct, and the cast joining the next month. Filming took place in British Columbia in October and November 2018. Antlers premiered at Beyond Fest on October 11, 2021, and was theatrically released in the United States on October 29, 2021, by Searchlight Pictures, after being delayed twice from an original April 2020 release date due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

THE GOOD

2021 has been a crazy year full of movies, especially this fall, and there is no denying that Antlers fell under my radar. I remembered seeing the trailer and being very intrigued by the main concept, but once I saw that Guillermo del Toro’s (one of my favorite directors) name was attached to this project as a producer, I knew I would have to check it out. Well, it is currently showing at Smitty’s Cinema, and I watched it last night, and let’s just say it did not disappoint. I was so impressed with this film for a number of reasons, but what impressed me most were the horror elements.

It is so hard nowadays to get good original content in the horror genre. For the most part, the horror genre is filled with sequels on top of sequels of films that were good decades ago, but the past few years we have gotten some good stuff, and Antlers is good stuff alright. We have obviously seen horror movies dealing with supernatural creatures, but Antlers found a way to put their twist on the supernatural horror genre and make it wholly original. The story is unique and features a creature unlike anything we have ever seen graze the big screen before that will keep us up at night. I didn’t really think this movie was going to scare me walking in, but I have to admit it did. The horror elements are just top notch with the lighting in some scenes, the underlying creepy score, the sound effects on the creature, and some unbelievable editing that will have you itching for what could possibly come next.

The horror elements were fantastic, but a movie isn’t a good movie without solid performances from the actors, and we get just that with Antlers. First with Keri Russell, and let me just say to start how amazing it was to see her face on the big screen for the first time since 2016. She is just an amazing actress, and she did a great job in this as she fully embodied the caring-but-curious teacher Julia Meadows. And no surprise here, but Jesse Plemons was rock-solid in this as Julia’s brother and town sheriff, Paul Meadows. I don’t know what it is, but I just love Plemons in everything he is in. The dude just knows how to act, we saw it in Breaking Bad, but now it seems like he is just getting better role-after-role and I see him winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in the very near future. I also have to shout out the performance we got from Jeremy T. Thomas as Lucas Weaver, the boy harboring the beast. It is tough with kid actors in horror movies sometimes, but he knocked it out of the park and I look forward to seeing how his acting career pans out down the line.

Lastly, and I’m a sucker for some good cinematography mind you, but Antlers features some breathtaking shots. The film is set in a small town in Oregon, but was primarily shot in and around Hope, British Columbia, and I just got to say wow, British Columbia is beautiful as it's full of forest and mountains. I especially loved all the drone shots and obviously the shots featuring the supernatural creature, and I just loved what cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister did in this film.

THE BAD

Overall, I really enjoyed this film and I don’t see anybody not liking this, but there are two things that just bugged me. The first is the ending. And I got to be careful here as I don’t want to spoil anything, but it just felt so basic and elementary which was disappointing because the film as a whole is the complete opposite. It just left a bad taste in my mouth walking out of the theater, and I think they could have gone somewhere else with the conclusion.

Secondly, and this kind of ties into why I wasn’t a fan of the ending, but I just felt that Antlers featured some themes that were underdeveloped. Once again I have to be careful here, but throughout the whole movie, there is an underlying theme and backstory we come to find out about that deals with Julia and Paul’s childhood and relationship with their father. The backstory was intriguing and as someone who was invested into the film, I wanted to know more about this and ultimately find out what happened, but unfortunately, aside from a few momentary flashbacks, we do not get much and are unable to know why the siblings are the way they are.

THE VERDICT

Even though I disliked the ending as I felt some of the themes were underdeveloped, Antlers is an overall very solid horror movie directed by Scott Cooper and produced by the legendary Guillermo del Toro. It checks every box when it comes to the horror elements you want to see, and it also features some beautiful cinematography and two exemplary performances from Keri Russell and Jesse Plemons. I don’t know if Antlers will ever be regarded as a classic in the supernatural horror genre, but I do know that it will change the way we look at deer antlers forever.