Antlers

Scott Cooper's new film Antlers could disconcert those who know his filmography, as he has specialized until now in realistic films, whether it is an excellent musical film (Crazy Heart (2009), which won two Oscars, a family drama (Out of the Furnace (2013)) but also a crime film Strictly Criminal (Black Mass) (2015) or a western (Hostiles) (2017). Hungry (Antlers) is indeed a horrific tale that is the adaptation of the short story by Nick Antosca, The quiet boy (2019) which was published in the magazine Guernica. However, if we look closely, we find in this film common features with his film Out of the Furnace, placing the setting in a small American town in a rather poor environment in which we discover characters confronted with elements that exceed them. The screenplay was written by the author of the short story, but also by director Scott Cooper, assisted by C. Henry Chaisson. 

The action of Antlers takes place in a small isolated town in Oregon. A middle school teacher Julia Meadows (Keri Russell) and her sheriff brother Paul Meadows (Jesse Plemons) become entangled with her enigmatic student (Jeremy T. Thomas) whose dark secrets lead to terrifying encounters with a legendary ancestral creature (the Wendigo).  The final denouement will leave no one unmoved and will remind us how cruel our world is and how poignant dramas can be.

It's a strange exercise in style for director Scott Cooper, who for the first time turns to a horror film while not forgetting to draw attention to the fate of small American towns left to their own devices. Certainly, this director doesn't have the experience of the masters of horror such as Wes Craven, John Carpenter to deliver us a film with an anguishing rhythm and scenes destined to become a cult, but he proves to be rather gifted as a storyteller and to give life to endearing characters, whether it is this teacher with a difficult past or this young student who has to live with his father and his young brother who have lost their part of humanity to become real monsters. The too dark atmosphere of the film spoils our pleasure as the creature is never fully revealed and the violent scenes are reduced to their strict minimum as if Searchlight Pictures had tried to make a horrific film visible to all with a ban only for children under 12 years old and this greatly diminishes the effectiveness of this film but allows it to benefit from an original treatment and to turn towards the horrific tale worthy of the films specific to the Halloween season (it's not a pure coincidence that the film was released on October 29th in the United States).

It will never be taken away that Scott Cooper is an excellent storyteller and that he knows how to give to these films a very particular tint and to give to his actors consistent roles. The actress Keri Russell delivers here an excellent interpretation and brings her beauty and fragility to a film that knows how to be violent without being scary. For those who grew up watching the X-Files on television, the story told in Antlers could have been an excellent episode. However, in this case, the slow pace of the film spoils our pleasure of finally discovering an original and neat horror film in theaters. While a horrific and supernatural climate arrives little by little in this film, we wonder if the real evil in this film is not this Wendigo who tries to survive through a person but rather this depression and this lack of humanity which strikes our current society. Faced with elements that overwhelm us, what can we really do to make good triumph? The fact remains that Antlers is a pleasure to watch but could have been a better film with a director who perfectly masters the horrific genre and who is able to give life to some striking characters. The absence of light and the will to unfold almost the whole film at night or even in the darkness of a house seems to show a will to remain too soft which proves to be a bad strategic choice here.

Antlers
Directed by Scott Cooper
Screenplay by C. Henry Chaisson, Nick Antosca, Scott Cooper
Based on The Quiet Boy by Nick Antosca
Produced by Guillermo del Toro, David S. Goyer, J. Miles Dale
Starring Keri Russell, Jesse Plemons, Jeremy T. Thomas, Graham Greene, Scott Haze, Rory Cochrane, Amy Madigan
Cinematography : Florian Hoffmeister
Edited by Dylan Tichenor
Music by Javier Navarrete
Production companies : Phantom Four, Double Dare You Productions, TSG Entertainment
Distributed by Searchlight Pictures
Release date : October 11, 2021 (Beyond Fest), October 29, 2021 (United States), November 17, 2021 (France)
Running time : 99 minutes

Seen on October 29, 2021 at Gaumont Disney Village, Room 4 seat A18

Mulder's Mark: