Antlers
Antlers
Starring Keri Russell, Jesse Plemons, Jeremy T. Thomas, Scott Haze
Directed by Scott Cooper
Julia Meadows (Keri Russell) is a schoolteacher who just moved back to her childhood home to help her brother, Sheriff Paul Meadows (Jesse Plemons) with the house, and the memories of her abusive father plague her thoughts. Meanwhile, young Lucas Weaver (Jeremy T. Thomas) begins acting more and more isolated after his father Frank (Scott Haze) is attacked by an unknown creature, and along with Lucas's brother Aiden (Sawyer Jones), who was also attacked, Lucas keeps them locked up in their home as they exhibit weird, erratic signs. Julia picks up on Lucas's behavior and feels that he might be getting abused by Frank, who's a well-known meth addict and dealer in town, not knowing Lucas is trying to protect his father and brother from becoming flesh-eating monsters, and her discoveries lead her down a dark path that could end in her death.
The movie is based off a short story by Nick Antosca, and it is equal parts metaphorical and physical, a story that's part myth and part reality (or all reality, if you believe the legends, which I do) but firmly grounded in a tight-knit story and a dark, ominous setting that adds to the tension. Metaphorically, the film is about the demons of your past and how you combat them, as Julia struggles with her repressed feelings toward her father's abuse, and Lucas struggles with living with a meth addict father after his mother passed away. These monsters in their minds are fully enveloped in the form of the creature that not-so-surprisingly emerges from Lucas's father, which serves as a parallel to both Lucas and Julia's pasts.
Physically, this is a pure creature feature from start to finish, told expertly through the direction of Scott Cooper (who also wrote and directed films like "Crazy Heart," "Hostiles," and "Out of the Furnace") and produced by the great Guillermo del Toro, whose creatures are the things of modern cinema legend ("The Shape of Water" and especially "Pan's Labyrinth" prove this). It's a unique pairing that shows on screen, as Cooper is an expert at telling the stories of broken people, while del Toro is a masterclass at telling stories of broken places. These two intersect here with pinpoint precision, enveloped by the talented cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister, who clouds the small Oregon town in continual hues of grey and black, while not shying away from using shadows, silhouettes, and darkened rooms and hallways to their full advantage.
The cast is small, which opens the story up for a deeply emotionally character driven saga, and Keri Russell leads the ship like a prestigious captain, showing Julia both as a fractured person as well as a tough, determined heroine who stops at nothing to help someone else she thinks is being abused. Jesse Plemons gives a great performance as well as Julia's more no-nonsense brother, but who also endures the tragedies of their shared familial past but in a totally different way. Rounding out the cast is young newcomer Jeremy T. Thomas, who gives Lucas an emotional center and a character you feel very bad for. He's only twelve but he has to maintain the facade that everything at home is alright, while trying to protect his father and brother from the monsters inside them, along with trying to maintain their secret - all the while still dealing with his mother's death and the more-than-likely demise of the rest of his family. Thomas holds it down expertly for someone so young, and will have a bright future ahead of him.
If there's any problem with the script it's that at points it seems like it tries to tell two different stories at once, struggling between the horrors of rough family lives mixed with a town that's plagued by the opioid epidemic, as well as the supernatural horror of the creature at large. It'd be a spoiler to talk about what creature it is, but it only adds credence to the story as a whole, but at points it does come into conflict with one another. That, and the fact that the film doesn't have a moment of brevity - there's no humor, no light, no quiet pauses in the continual sense of dread. Still, this is a horror film at the forefront, not a romantic comedy.
Filled with bloody gore, a core story, compelling characters and a gloomy setting, "Antlers" shows what a tight, confined creature feature film can do with a limited budget while still provide decent scares and thought-provoking questions.
The Score: A-
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