CULT CINEMA
Antlers046 | W W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K
We speak Antlers director Scott Cooper about
diving into the Wendigo mythology and
making monsters with Guillermo del Toro
A
ntlers is director Scott Cooper’s first foray into horror filmmaking and his
fifth feature after Crazy Heart, Hostiles, Out Of The Furnace and Black
Mass. A loose adaptation of Channel Zero creator, Nick Antosca’s short
story, ‘The Quiet Boy’, Cooper was guided by a hands-on producer and mentor in
the form of monster maestro, Guillermo del Toro.
“When Guillermo asked me to consider rewriting the screenplay and directing
it, he told me: ‘Your last three films have been horror films and nobody knows
it!’ In a sense he is completely right. For me personally, horror is a genre that
allows me to continue to explore the furthest and darkest reminisces of the
human experience. You get the type of rush from a horror film as a viewer,
that you don’t get from any other type of film. I feel at times, I have a duty as a
storyteller to grip the audience by the throat and never let go and horror is a
genre in which to do that.”
Keri Russell and Jesse Plemons star alongside talented young newcomer, Jeremy
T Thomas who plays, Lucas, a school boy who is showing signs of malnutrition,
abuse and neglect. Russell, as his teacher Julia, investigates his family life, while
her brother and sheriff Paul (Plemons) gets in over his head when a vicious entity is
unleashed on his small rural hometown.
Plemons is an actor who Cooper has worked with previously, and who he
chose, because of his everyman qualities, “Jesse is one of the best actors of
his generation. He represents an everyman in America in the best of ways. He
has such great countenance that you believe him in every scenario. He plays a
younger brother who harbours resentment towards his sister, but he’s also a sheriffWORDS KATHERINE MCLAUGHLINOf
Myths
And
Monsters
CULT CINEMA
Antlers046 | W W W. S C I FI N OW.CO.U K
We speak Antlers director Scott Cooper about
diving into the Wendigo mythology and
making monsters with Guillermo del Toro
A
ntlers is director Scott Cooper’s first foray into horror filmmaking and his
fifth feature after Crazy Heart, Hostiles, Out Of The Furnace and Black
Mass. A loose adaptation of Channel Zero creator, Nick Antosca’s short
story, ‘The Quiet Boy’, Cooper was guided by a hands-on producer and mentor in
the form of monster maestro, Guillermo del Toro.
“When Guillermo asked me to consider rewriting the screenplay and directing
it, he told me: ‘Your last three films have been horror films and nobody knows
it!’ In a sense he is completely right. For me personally, horror is a genre that
allows me to continue to explore the furthest and darkest reminisces of the
human experience. You get the type of rush from a horror film as a viewer,
that you don’t get from any other type of film. I feel at times, I have a duty as a
storyteller to grip the audience by the throat and never let go and horror is a
genre in which to do that.”
Keri Russell and Jesse Plemons star alongside talented young newcomer, Jeremy
T Thomas who plays, Lucas, a school boy who is showing signs of malnutrition,
abuse and neglect. Russell, as his teacher Julia, investigates his family life, while
her brother and sheriff Paul (Plemons) gets in over his head when a vicious entity is
unleashed on his small rural hometown.
Plemons is an actor who Cooper has worked with previously, and who he
chose, because of his everyman qualities, “Jesse is one of the best actors of
his generation. He represents an everyman in America in the best of ways. He
has such great countenance that you believe him in every scenario. He plays a
younger brother who harbours resentment towards his sister, but he’s also a sheriff
WORDS KATHERINE MCLAUGHLIN
Of
Myths
And
Monsters