Antlers

In 2017 Get Out was released and the term elevated horror began to be bandied about. It was a fancy way of describing a film that used horror elements to tackle social issues. Something that, in fairness, the horror genre has being doing forever. But, as is want to happen on the interweb, people started getting ratty about it, taking offence to the phrase, others started using it in an aloof fashion to separate films they saw as more than horror away from other genre pieces. Scott Cooper's new film Antlers fits the very definition of elevated horror but that doesn't mean it can't work as pure horror too.

Something odd is happening in a small Oregon town. Poverty is widespread and drug use is rife but locked away in a house outside town something supernatural is lurking. It's a secret kept by a young boy called Lucas (Jeremy T. Thomas, superb) and the secret is taking it's toll on him. His suffering is noticed by his teacher Julia (Keri Russell) who's become alarmed by the sinister pieces of art he works on in class. Julia has her own demons too, having run from childhood abuse years before. After the perpetrator's death she's come home to live with her brother Paul (Jesse Plemons), the town sheriff. As she tries to bond with Lucas she realises he's sheltering something horrific and so tries to save him from a terrible future while untying herself from a traumatic past.

Antlers was shot in the town of Hope, in British Columbia. If it looks familiar it's because First Blood was filmed there too over 40 years ago. Not much has changed there, not much ever changes in small towns. The same faces, the small places, the old facade covering up the sedentary badness that lurks in places where everyone knows everyone else's secrets. It's the perfect place for evil to dwell and in the mines below town something primal has risen and a small boy is keeping its secret. Kids in horror films, christ, always the best way to up the ante, add tension, no one ever wants to see a kid in trouble and Keri Russell's Julia, in looking out for Lucas, becomes the audience proxy. In films like this everyone else seems blind to what is happening except the proxy, authorities are always willing to look the other way or just not care until its too late. Antlers is pretty predictable in that manner and yes it does bluntly hammer you over the head with it's metaphors and meanings but when it starts working it becomes very effective.

Director Scott Cooper has made a name for himself over the last decade portraying the darker side of the American dream while producer Guillermo Del Toro has been creating weird and wonderful flights of gothic fancy for the bones of three decades now. Together they seem like odd bedfellows but somehow it works with Antlers' slowburn turn from a gritty study of small town misery into all out creature feature almost feeling like a relief when it happens. Monsters of the mind are tough to beat down but when they're alive and breathing in front of you and you've something sharp at hand at least it feels like you've a fighting chance. It's in these latter moments you'll really feel Del Toro's influence, with wonderfully drawn and queasily tactile effects but Cooper's direction will always remind you that nothing is ever that easy.

Antlers is in cinemas now. There's plenty here for those who like their horror movies dark and gor while those who prefer a touch of depth in their genre viewing will be pleased too. Don't expect to leave the cinema smiling though.