A young boy is left to fend for himself amidst the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, and schoolyard bullies, in Antlers, a richly evocative if thinly scripted new horror film from director Scott Cooper (Hostiles, Black Mass).
The boy is 12-year-old Lucas Weaver (played by Jeremy T. Thomas in an incredibly mannered performance), and he’s left to fend for himself after dad (Scott Haze) and younger brother Aidan (Sawyer Jones) are attacked by a mysterious presence in an abandoned mine where dad is brewing meth… and Lucas keeps a similar presence at bay, locked in the attic of the Weaver household in rural Oregon.
Lucas’ teacher Julia Meadows (Keri Russell) is quick to pick up that something isn’t quite right with her young student, but even after drawing attention to the boy’s obligatory creepy drawings – which seem to have been sketched with coal and blood – she still can’t convince the school’s principal (Amy Madigan) to intervene.
Her brother Paul (Jesse Plemons), who also happens to be the town’s sheriff, also isn’t much help. Despite knowing Lucas’ no-goodnik dad has likely been mistreating the boy, Paul is overwhelmed with his own problems: half-eaten bodies, gnawed on by humans, turning up in the woods.
The precise nature of what’s going on in Antlers will slowly reveal itself as something rooted in Native American mythology, but it’s (perhaps wisely) given only a cursory explanation here. Besides the briefest of backstory with Graham Greene’s former sheriff pointing to an illustration in a book he conveniently has at hand, much of the horror left to our imagination.
Still, something is going on in Antlers, and director Cooper and cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister convey that long takes of their characters walking through the decaying Oregon landscape during the autumn months. The setting is at once beautiful and terrifying, conveying a menacing sense of rural America that feels authentic.
Antlers works just fine as a moody little horror film, though genre fans might be put off by a slow-paced first hour that nicely establishes the feel and setting but offers little in the way of story momentum.
An unexpectedly graphic final half hour delivers along more traditional horror lines, however, and features some terrific creature design and first-rate practical and digital effects work. One image of the “face” of the monster, in particular, is likely to be burned into the memories of many viewers.
Beyond the horror, however, Antlers really scores as a surprisingly deep metaphor for child abuse, drawing parallels between survivor Julia and her young student who displays all the usual signs. Antlers is at its very best when it allows Lucas to speak for himself, and try to rationalize the unnatural terror he is living with at home.
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