Empire Australasia - 03.2020

[ON- SET REPORT]

We visit the set of the Scott

Cooper-Guillermo del Toro

team-up that aims to

introduce a memorable

new movie monster

WHERE? Vancouver, Canada

WHEN? 14 November 2018

WHY? Because when Guillermo del Toro

produces a new horror fi lm, and that new horror

fi lm is directed by Black Mass and Hostiles

director Scott Cooper — pretty much the last

person you’d expect to make a genre fl ick

— you have to be there.

WHO’S IN IT? Keri Russell, Jesse Plemons,

a Wendigo.

A WENDI-WHAT? A legendary creature,

born of Native American mythology. Part-

deer, part-ravenous psycho hose beast, all

bad motherfucker. Here, it comes into the lives

of a brother and sister (Plemons and Russell),

via a young boy (newcomer Jeremy T. Thomas),

like a reverse E.T.. But Cooper isn’t just planning

your basic stalk-and-slash. He’s got something

to say about man’s rapacious destruction of

the environment. The Wendigo is, like brush

fi res and tornados and earthquakes, just

one way Mother Nature has of fi ghting back.

“The Wendigo can serve as a metaphor,” he

says. “It’s protecting and vindicating nature.”

WHAT DID YOU SEE? A cabin, built on

a soundstage. A cop car, blue-and-red lights

shrouded in fake fog. A major character,

wounded. The creature itself, designed by the

renowned Shane Mahan but with more than

a little del Toro infl uence in there, is horrifying

and intimidating and, yes, boasts some pretty

impressive, and impressively deadly, antlers.

We even got to operate the hydraulic head for

a bit. Oh, and Keri Russell doing multiple takes

of a scene where she has to wake up and scream

her lungs out. No two screams were the same.

WHAT DID KERI RUSSELL HAVE TO SAY?

“I’m losing my voice,” she laughs, coughing

politely between sentences. “It’s a part of the

genre. I’m a little bit of a scaredy cat. I get

scared really easy. I feel like I memorise images

and they don’t go away, so I’m selective with

my horror fi lms.”

WHAT OF GUILLERMO? Although he wasn’t

on set when we were there, his infl uence was

palpable, particularly in the creature itself.

“I wouldn’t have made this fi lm if not for

Guillermo,” admits Cooper. “He came to me

and said, ‘Whether people will know it or not,

your last three fi lms have all been horror fi lms.’

I really only make fi lms I want to run out and see

on a Friday night, and when Guillermo del Toro

comes to you and says, ‘I think there’s something

you should make your own,’ how can you pass

that up?” CHRIS HEWITT

ANTLERS IS IN CINEMAS FROM 16 APRIL

Antlers

No. / 9

PREVIEW