In an isolated Oregon town, a middle-school teacher and her sheriff brother become embroiled with her enigmatic student, whose dark secrets lead to terrifying encounters with an ancestral creature.
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As part of our October HorrorFest, we will be posting new reviews of relatively recent horror films during the month of October
A school teacher in a small Oregon town becomes concerned about the well-being of one of her students in Antlers. Julia Meadows (Keri Russell) is a middle-school teacher, who has recently moved back to her Oregon hometown, where she lives with her sheriff brother Paul (Jesse Plemons). Julia becomes concerned about one of her students Lucas Weaver (Jeremy T. Thomas), whom she fears is a victim of abuse by his father Frank (Scott Haze). However, it soon turns out that Frank encountered something in the town’s mine, which causes him to undergo some horrendous changes.
Antlers is a folk horror creature feature co-written and directed by Scott Cooper (Hostiles, Black Mass) and produced by Guillermo del Toro. The film stars Keri Russell as Julia, a school teacher who has recently moved back to her hometown from the city and is still traumatized by the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. Julia fears the same is happening to her student Lucas, however instead she finds out that Lucas’ father has unleashed a mythical creature with a taste for flesh.
Antlers is a horror film that is based around a certain Native American legend, explained in an expository scene by Warren Stokes, played by an otherwise wasted Graham Greene, who has made a career playing the token First Nations character in films. I’m not going to outright say what the creature of Antlers is since it’s saved as a second-half reveal, but anyone with minimal knowledge of Native stories can probably look at the title of Antlers and piece it all together.
In fact, I would argue that the creature effects are probably the best aspect of Antlers, with the film featuring a very gory sequence of body horror. It’s almost a shame that the creature is shown only in glimpses until the climax since this is probably the reason why Guillermo del Toro decided to put his name on the film as a producer.
However, Antlers suffers somewhat when it comes to its story, as it is revealed that the protagonist of Julia Meadows was abused by her father, which is the reason why she left her Oregon hometown for the city. It is this history of abuse that fuels Julia’s desire to help Lucas, who has been drawing very disturbing images in Julia’s class and is shown having to take care of his “very sick” father and younger brother.
It almost seems like Scott Cooper added the abuse backstory into the film to give Antlers some horror themes that weren’t in the realm of fantasy. However, it can be surmised that most going into Antlers will only be coming for the creature, so Cooper probably should have stuck with making Antlers an entertaining creature feature, without trying to add more layers to the narrative.