Speaking about Wendigo, have you seen Antonia Bird's Ravenous? 1999 flick with Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, David Arquette? Totally bonkers but so good. Hunt it down if you can, invite a friend over dinner, make a stew.
Antlers was directed by Scott Cooper (Hostiles, Black Mass), who co-wrote the screenplay with Henry Chaisson (Servant I LOVED THIS!!), and Hannibal alumni Nick Antosca who sure knows a lot about Wendigo and people eating people and antlers. Antosca also created the horror anthology series Channel Zero which I also adore--it's on Shudder--in a nutshell, this guy is a horror god. Antlers is an adaptation of a short story written by Antosca, "The Quiet Boy." Oh, and Guillermo del Toro is also involved! What a pedigree.
The small town in Oregon is pretty much dead. The coal mine shut down; stores are shuttered. People swapped their jobs with meth habits. Frank Weaver (Scott Haze Old Henry) and his mate have converted part of a mine into a crude meth lab and are cooking up a batch while Frank's youngest son, Aidan (Sawyer Jones Stillwater), waits in the car outside. Aidan hears a noise coming from inside the mine shaft and he goes to check it out because he's too young to know the first rule of hearing noises in horror movies.
Meth is the new black
Frank's older son, Lucas (Jeremy T Thomas Paradise Lost), learns about myths and legends at school. Lucas is twelve but he doesn't look it. Small frame, sunken eye sockets, something ain't right. Teacher Julia Meadows (Keri Russell The Americans), wants the kids to share their own myth/legend to talk about in class.
On the way home from school, Lucas kills a skunk, takes it home, and chucks it in a dark room in the attic filled with howls and death. This is fine. He also whittles in class.
Whittle me this...
Lucas brings his ever-present sketch book to class. It's filled with horrific drawings in red and black ink or monsters and caves and blood. He tells a story about a family of bears but this ain't no fairytale. Julia, a victim of abuse as a child, is concerned about Lucas and starts chatting over ice cream. One day she goes to his house to talk to his dad. She hears a weird groaning noise and bails. She's smart. She knows the rules.
Julia's brother, Paul (Jesse Plemons aka Not Matt Damon - Fargo), is the town's Sheriff. A body is found in the woods. Sorry, "part of a man" is found in the woods. The coroner says the bite marks were made by a human.
School Principal Ellen (Amy Madigan The Hunt) also goes to the house to talk to Frank about his son. She hears a noise. She doesn't know the rules. She doesn't bail. Even worse, she tries to find the source of the noise and, wait for it, unlocks a door with two locks. Honey, please. Spoiler: she goes missing.
Julia and Paul show Lucas' drawings to the town's only (?) Native American, Warren (Graham Greene The Wolf and the Lion). He gives them a quick lesson about Wendigo. It's not a myth, so you better know how to kill it.
I really like this film. Really, really, but gosh darn that scene with Graham Greene (who is actually an Native Canadian) irked me. We've seen the trope of "The Magical Negro" in films--horror is particularly guilty (see TVTropes), where someone with dark skin knows the secret to whatever problem needs solving and they impart this knowledge to the white peeps like a fairy godmother. Producers did consult First Nations experts in creating the film--especially the look of the Wendigo. There's a great article here from Indiewire about that process.
Cultural sensitivities aside, I thought this was a great flick. Jeremy T
Thomson is an incredible actor, he crushed my soul. They seem to find the best child actors to star in horror films these days. Just brilliant.
The visuals are
misty and broody. The coal mine is a scar on a densely forested landscape. The film itself is loaded with warnings about colonialisation, climate change, deforestation, people getting addicted to drugs and coal. Antlers opens with a poem about Mother Earth being pillaged and I didn't write enough of it down to look for it.
The Wendigo. Holy shitballs. Wow. The glowing heart, wow. The embers, THE EMBERS, that little effect made my (not glowing) heart sing.
If you liked this, you'll love The Ritual
While we're still here, what the fudge is this about? Do an image search for Wendigo and Joe Biden pops up because...
Eight out of ten.
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