Film Review
‘Antlers’: An Underrated, Atmospheric Horror Film
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Spoiler Alert: This review contains spoilers for the 2021 film, Antlers.
I watched Antlers last week. The film was originally scheduled for theatrical release in April 2020, but we all know what happened during that time period. After a long 18-month delay, the film was finally released in October of 2021.
Antlers received lukewarm reviews, most of which praised the cinematography and acting, but took issue with its unclear, meandering themes.
The movie stuck with me. I found myself thinking about it more and more, discovering more details. Antlers has a lot to offer; it’s a well-crafted horror film, and I think critics may have judged and dismissed it a little too quickly.
The Monster as Drug Addiction
This is just my read on the creepy monster in Antlers, but I took it as a metaphor for drug addiction.
Frank Meadows is a good father who is down on his luck. The thriving small town he’s grown up in has spent the past 20 years falling further and further into decay. There are no jobs, no opportunities, no real future for the people who live there. He has lost his wife and is trying to provide for his two young sons, Lucas and Aiden.
The first time we see of Frank, he’s coming out of the town’s abandoned mine to check on his younger son Aiden: “We’re almost done now. Do not leave this truck, or drive off with it…I’ll be right back, bud. Love you!”. These are hardly the words of a dismissive father — immediately, we feel sympathy for Frank.
This is the film’s theme stated, right here in the first scene: Frank is a father doing his best to provide for his family. And the film stays true to that theme to the end — a sign of a well-written screenplay.
We discover that Frank is using the abandoned mine to run a meth lab. His face bears the marks of someone who has tried his own product in the past, but he isn’t high now — he’s focused on finishing up so he can return to Aiden, who’s waiting outside.
Things are about to change.
An unseen creature attacks Frank, but it doesn’t kill him; instead, it starts to change him. The way he begins transforming seems a lot like withdrawal: he’s shaky, on edge, emaciated. Despite his best intentions, Frank is becoming a monster (read: he’s using again).
But this doesn’t stop him from being a good father. Frank realizes that he’s a danger to his sons, and installs locks on the attic door: “Daddy is very, very sick. You lock that door. No matter what I do, you don’t open that door,” he tells Lucas.
Lucas does as he’s told, and keeps Frank fed by bringing him dead skunks and other creatures. Later, we learn that this was the wrong call: “Its insatiable appetite [is] never satisfied…they’re known to be eternally starving, but feasting only makes them hungrier,” says wise Warren Stokes, played by Graham Greene (read: the more you use, the harder it is to stop).
By this point, Frank is barely recognizable. He’s been reduced to a hacking, skeletal version of himself. He launches at and devours any meat that Lucas tosses into the room with him. It makes the viewer wonder if there’s any Frank left, or if he’s completely lost to the monster.
Young Aiden begins showing the same symptoms as Frank, and Lucas takes him to their father: “Daddy, Aiden’s very sick,” he tells his dad. As a viewer witnessing Frank’s transformation, I worried that he wouldn’t recognize his sons and might attack them. But even in Frank’s deteriorated state, he doesn’t hesitate. He takes Aiden’s arm and pulls him into the attic with him, then closes the door so Lucas can lock it again. Even though Aiden has followed in Frank’s footsteps, Frank is going to try and protect him (read: addiction truly is a family illness).
At the climax of the movie, Frank sheds his human body and physically becomes the monster…but he chooses to keep one piece of himself: he wears his human face over his monstrous one. When his sons look at him, they still see their father. I thought this was a great choice from director Scott Cooper — it tells us that Frank is a father first, to the very end.
From Survivor to Conqueror
Standing in stark contrast to Frank is Julia and Paul Meadows’ father, who we only see in brief flashbacks from Julia (played by Keri Russell). We are led to believe that Julia was sexually and physically abused by her father, which she escaped only by moving to California, leaving her brother Paul behind.
It isn’t clear, at first, whether their father shifted his attention to Paul after Julia left, but we soon learn that he did. Near the end of the film, Paul snaps at Julia: “You don’t know what he did to me.”
I liked the contrast between Frank — someone in the throes of addiction but who manages to remain a fiercely protective father — and the Meadows’ father — someone who succumbs to his addiction and inflicts it upon his children. Director Scott Cooper explores the long-term ramifications of this abuse through Julia, who is a recovering alcoholic.
Julia is Lucas’s teacher at school, and as someone who grew up in an abusive household herself, is the only one to pick up on the signs from Lucas (although he’s subject to a different kind of abuse).
While all the other characters quickly fall victim to Frank, it makes sense that Julia, a survivor of abuse, is the only one who stands a chance at defeating the monster and protecting Lucas.
About Absent Mothers
Both Lucas and Julia lost their mothers when they were young. We never learn how each of them died, which makes sense because really, it doesn’t matter. Whether Lucas and Julia’s moms physically died or mentally checked out (as many women in abusive relationships do), they weren’t in the picture. They couldn’t defend their children against the abuse happening in the home.
I can see why director Scott Cooper made the decision to simply cut the mothers from the film — it forces Julia into more of a mother’s role when it comes to Lucas. As she says to her brother Paul: “He has no one. We don’t know where the brother is, so where’s he gonna go? He doesn’t have family, and he’s my student, so he is my responsibility.”
Critics’ Biggest Issue with ‘Antlers’: The Theme of Environmentalism
Critics have argued that the climate change angle felt unnecessary and I agree with them. It felt shoehorned into the film, something of an afterthought.
The theme only showed up a few times: as background audio when characters were listening to the radio or watching TV (“…has already begun rolling back environmental regulations. Today, an EPA spokesman announced a comprehensive plan to revive the coal industry…”), and in the opening text at the beginning of the film:
‘Mother Earth has been pillaged, stripped of her life’s blood. A violation that has awakened the Malevolent Spirit. Seeking the lost, the frail, and the depraved…’
The opening text certainly hooked me at the beginning, so it was disappointing when the film failed to deliver on that thematic promise. It would have been nice to see some sort of environmental tie-in during or after the film’s climax.
When I step back and take a look at the film as a whole, I think it could have worked just as well without the environmental aspect. Let the monster be a metaphor for drug abuse, and leave it at that. The less we know about a monster, the scarier it is anyway.
Overall, the film was well done
The cinematography, in particular, was superb and the art direction was fantastic. The location scouts chose well with the little town of Hope, British Columbia, which convincingly stood in for small town Oregon. The town’s desolation was palpable (I’m thinking of the broken down mine and the long line of people at the town’s drug treatment centre). A constant fog hangs over the town, and I don’t think I saw a single ray of sunshine throughout the entire film.
However, the film did feel a bit comical when characters continued to make the same mistakes over and over.
Julia Meadows (Keri Russell) goes to the Weaver’s house alone — I thought, Noooo!. Then the principal goes alone — again, I thought, Noooo! Once is understandable in a horror film — twice is just dumb.
The same thing happens later in the film. Instead of waiting for back-up to arrive, Officer Daniel LeCroy (played by Rory Cochrane) approaches the monster alone, only to be attacked and killed. When backup arrives in the form of Sheriff Paul Meadows, he approaches the monster alone, too, and is attacked in the exact same way. The audience can forgive the first time, but the second time just comes across as frustrating.
What’s Next for Writer/Director Scott Cooper?
I know writer/director Scott Cooper’s previous work. He typically does moody dramas and violent gangster movies, like Out of the Furnace (2013) and Hostiles (2017). He directed Crazy Heart (2009), which won Jeff Bridges an Oscar (Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role) and also nominated co-star Maggie Gyllenhaal (Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role). Black Mass (2015) was another of Cooper’s heavy hitters that saw Johnny Depp nominated for a SAG Award (Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role).
Antlers is a horror film and, as such, it feels like a real departure from Cooper’s usual genres. But despite the less-than-stellar reviews and a modest 60% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Cooper’s next project will be another horror film: The Pale Blue Eye. He’s never had a tough time attracting A-list talent, and his upcoming film is no exception: the cast includes Christian Bale, Gillian Anderson, and Timothy Spall, among others.
The plot description for The Pale Blue Eye on IMDb reads: “A veteran detective investigates murders, helped by a detail-oriented young cadet who will later become a world famous author, Edgar Allan Poe.”
Though The Pale Blue Eye is a horror film, it seems Cooper is returning to his roots in a sense by grounding his next film against the backdrop of a historical drama. I’m excited to see it.
