Rent Antlers on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Henry Chaisson & Nick Antosca and Scott Cooper (screenplay by), Nick Antosca (based upon the short story "The Quiet Boy" by)
Directed by: Scott Cooper
Starring: Keri Russell, Jesse Plemons, Jeremy T. Thomas, Graham Greene
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
In an isolated Oregon town, a middle-school teacher and her sheriff brother become embroiled with her enigmatic student, whose dark secrets lead to terrifying encounters with an ancestral creature.
Verdict
It certainly has horror movie elements, but this starts out as more of a drama creating a metaphor between actual monsters and childhood trauma. A teacher becomes concerned for a student, worried about his home life. Little does she know what's really going on. This has a story that's more than monsters killing people, though the movie doesn't fully escape that. This does a good job of not showing too much too early.
Watch It.
Review
This starts with two guys running a small meth lab in an abandoned mine while one of their kids sits in the truck outside. They encounter a beast and the scene ends before we see what happened.
Lucas (Jeremy T. Thomas) attends school, though he's distracted. He's drawing images of monsters, when he's not being bullied. The question of what happened in the mine lingers. Did the beast in the mine kill his dad? No. Lucas has something locked in his house, though we don't know what exactly.
 |
| Jesse Plemons, Jeremy T. Thomas, Keri Russell play Paul, Lucas, Julia |
Lucas's teacher Julia (Keri Russell) thinks he's being abused. She has just moved back to her hometown with her brother Paul. Julia suffered childhood abuse herself, keenly aware of symptoms. The monster is the metaphor. Abuse is is a horror. This look at trauma, who and how it affects. Julia's observations are completely valid, it's just that Lucas is dealing with a literal monster.
What does Lucas have locked in his house? That is slowly answered throughout the movie before we finally get all answers. This is more than just a run of the mill monster. I like how the movie weaves myths and legend into this. It provides a bit more depth. It doesn't dip into the usual horror movie tropes. This is a drama that just happens to have horror elements.
Julia convinces the school principal to check on Lucas. As soon as that Volvo pulled into the driveway you knew nothing good was going to happen. I do have to wonder if the principal could just enter a house like that without cause.
The movie is two stories in one, focusing on the demons kids face. Sometimes that's a parent, sometimes it's a beast that devours people. I have to wonder about this beast. We see it exit the mine, but I assume it hasn't always been terrorizing the town as there don't seem to be pre-existing problems. Did it awaken or did the medicine bags wear out?
To end a movie like this, you have a couple of typical horror movie routes. The beast is slain or it's left open ended. Julia does step it up and slay her demons. You'll have to determine if that's literal of figurative by watching the movie.
No comments :
Post a Comment