Antlers (2021 film)

2021 supernatural horror filmTemplate:SHORTDESC:2021 supernatural horror film

* C. Henry Chaisson
* Nick Antosca
* Scott Cooper
* Guillermo del Toro
* David S. Goyer
* J. Miles Dale
* Keri Russell
* Jesse Plemons
* Jeremy T. Thomas
* Graham Greene
* Scott Haze
* Rory Cochrane
* Amy Madigan
* Searchlight Pictures
* Phantom Four
* Double Dare You Productions
* TSG Entertainment
* October 11, 2021 (2021-10-11) (Beyond Fest)
* October 29, 2021 (2021-10-29) (United States)
* United States
* Mexico
* Canada

***Antlers*** is a 2021 supernatural horror film directed by Scott Cooper, and stars Keri Russell, Jesse Plemons, Jeremy T. Thomas, Graham Greene, Scott Haze, Rory Cochrane, and Amy Madigan. The screenplay, written by C. Henry Chaisson, Nick Antosca, and Cooper, was adapted from Antosca's short story "The Quiet Boy," originally published in *Guernica* magazine in January 2019.. The film follows a school teacher as she suspects one of her students is suffering from personal problems in his home life, not knowing that the student is harboring a dangerous entity in his house.

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 in October 11, 2021, and was theatrically released in the United States on October 29, 2021, by Searchlight Pictures, after being delayed twice from an April 2020 release date due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the cinematography, acting and the horror elements, but lamented the screenplay's underdeveloped themes.

## Plot

In a small town in central Oregon, Frank Weaver runs a meth lab out of an abandoned mine. While his young son Aiden waits outside the mine in his truck, Frank and an accomplice are attacked by an unseen creature. Investigating strange noises, Aiden is also attacked by the creature. Frank and Aiden survive their encounter with the creature and return home, where their condition quickly worsens. Frank sets up a locked room and demands that no matter what, Aiden's older brother Lucas keeps them locked inside.

Three weeks later, Lucas spends his time roaming the town, collecting roadkill and killing small animals before taking them home. Lucas's teacher, Julia Meadows, is alarmed by Lucas's strange behavior and frightening 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 mentally ill alcoholic father. Since her father's recent suicide, she returned to the town to be with her brother Paul, who is the local sheriff, and whom she feels guilty about abandoning when she was younger. Despite concern from Paul and dismissive comments from school principal Ellen Booth, Julia persists in her investigation into Lucas, eventually visiting his rundown home and hearing strange sounds. Half of the remains of Frank's accomplice are found in the woods by former sheriff Warren Stokes, alarming Paul and his fellow officer Dan Lecroy. Lucas is keeping his now sickly and ravenous father and brother locked in the room and feeding them with the animal carcasses he retrieves.

Julia's concerns about Lucas persist and she pressures Ellen, the principal, into paying his father Frank a visit. Paul and Warren discover the other part of Frank's accomplice in the mine along with a part of an antler. Ellen visits the Weaver house and discovers the room where Frank and Aiden are locked up, which she unlocks and enters. Frank kills Ellen before antlers burst out of his body in some sort of transformation. Frank, now transformed into a savage horned creature, kills Lucas's school bully Clint when Lucas is attacked by the boy. A terrified Lucas flees to his home, where he discovers both his father and brother gone. Ellen is reported missing and, suspecting something is wrong, Julia visits the Weaver house, where she finds Ellen's car. The police arrive at the house and discover Ellen's body along with Frank's, which is now a charred husk. Aiden is nowhere to be found. Lucas is taken to the hospital, where Julia and Paul are told he was abused. Julia decides to let Lucas stay with her despite Paul's concerns.

The next day, while Lucas recovers in the hospital, Julia and Paul pay Warren Stokes, a local Native American, a visit and show him Lucas's drawings. Warren identifies the figure as a wendigo, a legendary Algonquin creature that appears as a ravenous, cannibalistic spirit and jumps from person to person. It can only be killed when it is weakest: as it is feeding. Clint's body is discovered that night with injuries suggesting Warren's legend about the Wendigo is real. Lucas is discharged from the hospital and informed by Julia that Frank is dead. Lucas tells her she is wrong and that Frank is coming for him, to take him down to the mine to be with Aiden.

The transformed Frank uses Aiden to lure Dan, the deputy, into the shed outside Julia's house and kill him. Hearing the commotion, Julia and Lucas hide while Paul arrives and is also badly wounded. Lucas escapes to the mine while Julia retrieves Paul. The pair travel to the mine; Julia enters armed with a pistol. Inside, she discovers Lucas and Aiden, and sees that Frank has indeed become a wendigo, currently feasting on a dead bear. After a vicious fight, Julia manages to kill the wendigo-possessed Frank with the help of Lucas. The wendigo spirit passes into Aiden and, despite Lucas's protests, Julia stabs Aiden to death, seemingly ending the curse.

Sometime later, a recovered Paul and Julia discuss keeping Lucas with them for a while, despite concerns he may become possessed as well. As Julia and Lucas leave, Paul begins to cough up a black bile, as Frank had when first possessed by the wendigo.

## Cast

* Keri Russell as Julia Meadows
	+ Katelyn Peterson as young Julia Meadows
* Jesse Plemons as Paul Meadows
* Jeremy T. Thomas as Lucas Weaver
* Graham Greene as Warren Stokes
* Scott Haze as Frank Weaver
* Rory Cochrane as Dan Lecroy
* Amy Madigan as Ellen Booth
* Cody Davis as Clint Owens
* Sawyer Jones as Aiden Weaver
* Jake T. Roberts as a forensic officer

## Production

In July 2018, it was announced that Guillermo del Toro would produce *Antlers*, a film to be directed by Scott Cooper with Keri Russell in negotiations to star. It was planned to begin filming in Vancouver, British Columbia, by the fourth quarter of 2018. In August 2018, Jesse Plemons joined the cast. In October 2018, Jeremy T. Thomas, Graham Greene, Amy Madigan, Scott Haze, and Rory Cochrane joined the cast.

Principal photography began on October 1, 2018, and finished on November 30, 2018. The film is primarily shot in and around Hope, British Columbia.

## Release

*Antlers* premiered at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles on October 11, 2021. It was theatrically released in the United States on October 29, 2021.

The film originally previously scheduled to be released on April 17, 2020, but was removed from the release calendar due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was rescheduled to February 19, 2021, before being removed from the release calendar again.

## Reception

### Box office

In the United States and Canada, *Antlers* was released alongside *Last Night in Soho* and the expansion of *The French Dispatch* and was projected to gross around $5 million from 2,800 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $1.7 million on its first day and went on to debut to $4.2 million, finishing seventh at the box office. In its second weekend the film dropped 53% to $2 million.

### Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 59% of 163 reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.90/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "It struggles to find a successful balance between its genre and allegorical elements, but *Antlers* is sharp enough to recommend as a richly atmospheric creature feature." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 57 out of 100 based on 33 critical reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it a 59% positive score, with 42% saying they would definitely recommend it.

Todd Gilchrist of *TheWrap* gave the film a mostly positive review, calling it "a handsome, meticulous, yet overly serious entry in a horror sub-genre explored too infrequently; Guillermo del Toro was right to choose Cooper, but what the film needs is more of del Toro's own exuberance to truly bring it to life." Linda Marric of *The Jewish Chronicle* gave the film a score of 3/5 stars, writing: "*Antlers* is both dark in tone and aesthetically stunning to look at. Cooper does a fantastic job in creating a suitably dark and disturbing atmosphere to go with the film's decidedly dark body horror narrative", but added that it "eventually leans a little too heavily on jarringly obvious allegories about drug addiction and child abuse, losing all the things it had built on in the process". Jake Wilson of *The Age* gave the film 3/5 stars, describing it as "murky but interesting" and writing that it "is a lot less goofy than you’d expect from a horror movie called *Antlers*, certainly less goofy than it would have been if its producer Guillermo del Toro had directed it himself". John DeFore of *The Hollywood Reporter* wrote that the film was "thoroughly successful both as icky art house horror and as an allegory of generational trauma" and praised Jeremy T. Thomas' performance. Brian Lowry of CNN wrote: "The net effect isn't necessarily bad assuming that expectations are modest, and there's something to be said for a more understated, small-scale approach to horror that doesn't confuse body count with scares."

Eric Eisenberg of *CinemaBlend* gave the film a 2.5/5 star rating, saying in a mixed review, "Given its promise and everything it does right, *Antlers* winds up being a frustrating experience." Meagan Navarro, writing for *Bloody Disgusting*, also gave the film 2.5/5 stars and said that Cooper takes it too seriously, putting the emotional trauma at the forefront and saving the horror for the finale. She labelled the film a "monologue". Kevin Maher of *The Times* gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "A sterling performance from Keri Russell is wasted on this po-faced yet inherently silly horror film about a mutant killer humanoid stag monster." Benjamin Lee of *The Guardian* also gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "There's probably a semi-decent creature feature here and maybe, with a hefty amount of redrafting, a semi-decent human drama but as it stands it fails at both, a satisfying, coherent film buried underneath copious amounts of animal guts." Clarisse Loughrey of *The Independent* gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "There are measured performances here by both Russell and Plemons, two unfailingly talented actors, and a host of well-crafted practical effects... But all the trickery in the world can't conceal how inauthentic *Antlers* feels at heart." Barry Hertz of *The Globe and Mail* wrote: "*Antlers* is a gross film... But the film's *eeeeeghghgh* quality isn't limited to its on-screen viscera – Antler's gross-ness extends to its screenplay's slop-bucket collection of overused but underdeveloped themes, and a visual style that cough-gurgles poverty-porn fetishism." Anna Bogutskaya said on BBC Radio 5 Live: "It's really egregious, I think, how it just pulls out First Nations mythologies, like the mythology of the Wendigo, and the only First Nations actor that they cast in the film, Graham Greene, basically just delivers a bunch of spooky exposition and then disappears."

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Antlers (2021). Retrieved on February 13, 2020.
2. ↑ Template:Cite the numbers
3. ↑ Template:Cite Box Office Mojo
4. ↑ The Quiet Boy (en-US) (January 28, 2019).
5. ↑ Keri Russell in Talks to Star in Guillermo del Toro-Produced Thriller *Antlers* (Exclusive) (en) (July 11, 2018).
6. ↑ Kroll, Justin (August 14, 2018). Jesse Plemons to Co-Star With Keri Russell in Scott Cooper's *Antlers* (EXCLUSIVE) (en).
7. ↑ Hipes, Patrick (October 1, 2018). Graham Greene, Amy Madigan, Scott Haze Join Scott Cooper's Horror Thriller *Antlers* (en).
8. ↑ Scott Cooper's Horror Film Antlers Begins Production (en-US) (October 1, 2018).
9. ↑ Stevens, Michael. Vancouver Film - "Antlers", "The 100", "Siren" (en).
10. ↑ UPDATE: Scott Cooper's *Antlers* Produced By Guillermo del Toro Shoots October–November In Vancouver (en-US) (August 13, 2018).
11. ↑ Kroll, Justin (September 23, 2021). Searchlight And Scott Cooper’s ‘Antlers’ Sets Closing Night Of Beyond Fest 2021 As World Premiere. Retrieved on October 29, 2021.
12. ↑ D'Alessandro, Anthony (January 21, 2021). Searchlight Dates Sundance Acquisition *The Night House*, *Nightmare Alley* & More For Later This Year. Retrieved on January 21, 2021.
13. ↑ Frazer, Harry (October 23, 2019). *Antlers* Trailer: Scott Cooper's Terrifying Horror Finds Cannibals Terrorizing A Small Town. Retrieved on October 23, 2019.
14. ↑ Galuppo, Mia (March 12, 2020). *Mulan* Release Pushed Back Amid Coronavirus Pandemic. Retrieved on March 12, 2020.
15. ↑ D'Alessandro, Anthony (July 23, 2020). *Mulan* Off The Calendar; Disney Also Delays *Avatar* & *Star Wars* Movies By One Year As Studio Adjusts To Pandemic. Retrieved on July 23, 2020.
16. ↑ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>Couch, Adam (December 11, 2020). "*Free Guy*, *Thor 4* and *Lightyear* Get Release Dates Amid New Disney Plan". *The Hollywood Reporter*. Retrieved December 11, 2020.
17. ↑ Anthony D'Alessandro (October 24, 2021). 'Dune' Heaps $41M Domestic Opening After Near $10M Sunday; Highest For Denis Villeneuve & HBO Max Day And Date.
18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Anthony D'Alessandro (October 31, 2021). Halloween Scares Off Box Office: ‘Dune’ $15M+; ‘My Hero Academia’ $6M+, ‘Last Night In Soho’ & ‘Antlers’ Tie $4M.
19. ↑ Box Office: ‘Dune’ Dominates ‘Last Night in Soho,’ ‘Antlers’ in Second Weekend (October 30, 2021).
20. ↑ D'Alessandro, Anthony (November 7, 2021). 'Eternals' Seeing Possible $70M+ Opening Weekend: Why This Is A Wake-Up Call For The MCU; 'Red Notice' Box Office Unreported.
21. ↑ Template:Cite Rotten Tomatoes
22. ↑ Antlers Reviews. Red Ventures.
23. ↑ Gilchrist, Todd (October 12, 2021). 'Antlers' Film Review: Mythological Horror Tale Heavy on Drama, Light on Excitement.
24. ↑ Marric, Linda (October 27, 2021). Film review: Last Night in Soho/Antlers.
25. ↑ Wilson, Jake (October 27, 2021). Bad news keeps on coming in this creepy tale (en).
26. ↑ DeFore, John (October 12, 2021). Keri Russell and Jesse Plemons in ‘Antlers’: Film Review (en-US).
27. ↑ Lowry, Brian (October 28, 2021). 'Antlers' blunts its creepy horror by branching off in too many directions.
28. ↑ Eisenberg, Eric (October 12, 2021). Antlers Review: A Well Made Horror Movie That Doesn't Stick The Landing.
29. ↑ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>Navarro, Meagan (October 25, 2021). "[Review] 'Antlers' Sleepwalks Through Somber Folkloric Family Nightmare". *Bloody Disgusting*. Retrieved October 26, 2021.
30. ↑ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>Maher, Kevin (October 29, 2021). "Antlers review — horror doomed by existential gloom". *The Times*. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
31. ↑ Lee, Benjamin (October 26, 2021). Antlers review – dull, self-serious Del Toro-produced monster movie (en).
32. ↑ Loughrey, Clarisse (October 28, 2021). Antlers is an inauthentic muddle that dilutes and distorts Navajo myth – review (en).
33. ↑ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>Hertz, Barry (October 25, 2021). "Review: Blue-collar horror film Antlers is one of the grossest movies of the year, in every way". *The Globe and Mail*. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
34. ↑ Bogutskaya, Anna (October 29, 2021). Antlers reviewed by Anna Bogutskaya. *Kermode and Mayo's Film Review*.

## External links

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