Antlers isn’t so much slow and scary as it is bleak and boring.
The lifeless creature feature from director Scott Cooper has a decent enough premise. Set against the eerie backdrop of a mining town in Oregon, this not-so-terrifying tale follows a young boy named Lucas (Jeremy T. Thomas). He is struggling to cope after something strange attacks his father (Scott Haze) and little brother (Sawyer Jones). The monster spared their lives, but an excruciating illness now overtakes them.
Julia Meadows (Keri Russell) enters the picture when Lucas writes a disturbing story in her seventh-grade English class. A desk full of graphic drawings and a trip to Lucas’ dilapidated home later, Julia asks her police officer brother Paul (Jesse Plemons) to intervene in what she believes is a case of addiction-fueled abuse and neglect. But the Meadows siblings’ own dark past — and a string of unsolved murders — make matters complicated.
You’d be right to think that all sounds a bit familiar. Antlers is a Frankenstein's monster of borrowed parts, combining a dozen horror elements you’ve seen done better in the past. Still, there’s proof that this idea can work as a compelling and cohesive plot. Nick Antosca, who co-wrote the script with Cooper and C. Henry Chaisson, first conceived Antlers as a reasonably scary short story called “The Quiet Boy”, which was published online in 2019. It’s a wickedly fun read, sure to ensnare you with its dread-drenched atmosphere and inescapable emotion. Yet, little of what makes that telling gripping translates to the film adaptation.
Produced by Guillermo del Toro, Antlers is certainly visually striking with a handful of images likely to stick in your brain. But an overindulgence of mood-setting (think spooky shots of misty lakes and foggy trees soaking up runtime scene after scene...after scene) exposes the lack of meat on Antlers’ good bones. What’s worse, the entertaining elements this movie does manage to deliver too often work against one another.
You won't close your eyes, but you may roll them.
Though Russell does her best to sell the nightmare her character is living, too much of Julia’s backstory feels inauthentic to Russell as a performer. Her and Plemon’s recognizability cuts against the authenticity of the unknown child actors they’re working with, making their characters' relatability a reach at best. As a result, the sinister world Antlers works so hard to build feels less like the birth of something new than the shameless skinning and re-dressing of something old.
Furthermore, when the action never rises the level of other titles you may know the Russell and Plemons from — say Star Wars or Jungle Cruise — you'll feel let down by a film that comes off as poorly budgeted. The stylistic integrity similarly wavers. Whole acts of relatively grounded supernatural suspicions give way to an almost over-produced last chapter with a brash burst of CGI that makes you wonder if the special effects team was just running late.
There are good bits worth picking through, especially if you're a die-hard del Toro fan. But in the end, Antlers isn't worth the space it takes up on the wall. It's contrived and grating with a message as banal as Bambie. You won't close your eyes, but you may roll them.
Antlers is now in theaters.
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