10 Horror Movies With Amazing Concepts But TERRIBLE Execution
2. Antlers
A wendigo movie set in rural Oregon from the talented Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace, Hostiles) and produced by Guillermo del Toro? How couldn't this be something special?
Yet despite Cooper's evocative penchant for atmosphere, he struggles to fuse classic monster lore with a more considered character piece.
This is a film with a colossal identity crisis, seemingly unable to decide if it wants to commit fully to creature feature or dark psychological drama, and so ultimately satisfies as neither.
Again, it drips with atmosphere and the wendigo design is great, but the script and direction are sledgehammer-subtle re: the movie's themes, and given recent horror's tireless obsession with trauma messages, Antlers felt like it offered up too little, too late.
For all of Cooper's filmmaking accomplishments throughout his career, this is an unexpectedly thin, threadbare offering that can't even subsist on the strength of its visuals and creature work.