“Antlers” in the cinema – culture

After school, little Lucas goes to the forest. He kills a skunk with a stone, carries it home and cuts it into small pieces: feeding time. Behind the double and triple secured attic door it rattles and hisses. Only in fear of death can he go up and bring the lurking monster his daily ration of meat.

What lurks there is mysterious and tangible at the same time and has already drawn the boy heavily. Pale, emaciated and a little neglected, he sits in class and reads horror stories of man-eating wolves that make his teacher Julia sit up and take notice. Her brother, the village policeman, knows: Lucas’ father is an unemployed meth dealer, his mother dead. There is not much that can be done about that. “What happens to the children if the father goes to prison?” Just.

For his fifth feature film “Antlers”, director Scott Cooper has chosen quite a chunk of topics: unemployment, the opioid crisis, abuse and racism against the indigenous population. There are often small towns like this in the US where desolation seems to drip from every corner. Cooper has already dealt with these problems individually, for example in his addiction drama “Crazy Heart” (2009) with Jeff Bridges, or in the western “Feinde – Hostiles” (2017).

In a social drama, the concentrated misery that it now shows would probably have become overwhelming or implausible. A little much fate for participation in a small human life. As a horror film, however, Cooper can tackle any topic without having to go through it. In his adaptation of the short story “The Quiet Boy” by Nick Antosca, he instead turns the indigenous myth of the Wendigo into an all-encompassing metaphor.

Cooper uses the being above all to understand the social grievances as an inescapable web

Some North American First Nations pass on the story of a ghost of the dead, half human, half deer, with huge antlers and sharp teeth. The creature should live in dark forests and not only hunt people there, but also have the power to turn them into cannibals. One bite is enough to trigger the transformation, similar to zombies. It’s not entirely alien to pop culture either – it appears in Stephen King’s “Cemetery of Stuffed Animals” as well as in the monster hunter series “Supernatural”.

Lucas’ attempt to appease the monster with animal carcasses and to hide it from the community can therefore only go well for a short time. The wendigo in the attic will become invincible over time. Teacher Julia tries to help the boy, recognizes in him her own story of neglect and abuse. Cooper also turns the film into a hybrid: Thanks to fantasy expert Guillermo del Toro, who works here as producer, the moments of horror of classic “creature features” are not neglected. But Cooper uses the essence above all to understand the social grievances as an inescapable web: All the dramas and problems of this small town are interrelated – unemployment promotes addictions, which in turn make the children of those affected suffer, and so on. Even more unsettling than the horror and disgust of the bloodthirsty animal are the psychological horror and fatalism of a society that is tearing itself apart.

Antlers, USA, Mexico, Canada, 2021 – Director: Scott Cooper. Book: Scott Cooper, Nick Antosca. Camera: Florian Hoffmeister. Starring: Keri Russell, Jesse Plemons, Jeremy T. Thomas, Graham Greene. Disney, 100 minutes.