What do you get when you combine Hostiles and Out of the Furnace director Scott Cooper, The Act and Channel Zero writer Nick Antosca, producer Guillermo del Toro, and actors Keri Russell and Jesse Plemons? A delightfully creepy and creature-filled horror film like Antlers, which just dropped its first trailer and a brief plot synopsis for everyone who might be jonesing for such a ridiculous combination of talent.
The short trailer doesn’t give away too much, though the official logline does offer a few context clues:
In ANTLERS, a small-town Oregon teacher (Keri Russell) and her brother (Jesse Plemons), the local sheriff, discover that a young student (Jeremy T. Thomas) is harboring a dangerous secret with frightening consequences.
So, between the student’s “dangerous secret” and the brief snippets of gore, violence and del Toro-esque creature effects, Antlers looks an awful lot like a terrifying take on some kind of rural fairy tale. Interestingly enough, that’s precisely what Antosca’s original short story “The Quiet Boy,” on which Antlers is based, is all about:
But there was no Goldilocks in his story. There were only the Wolfs, who lived together in a cave above a town. Big Wolf, Middle Wolf, and Little Wolf. Big Wolf was a brute. Little Wolf was timid. Middle Wolf was the peacemaker.
Since we’re mixing fables here, I hope grandma makes it out alive and that the neighboring bears are a lot nicer in person.
