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Top 5 Terrific Uses of Visual Storytelling in the Horror Movie 'Antlers'

Antlers is not one of my favorite movies of the year but is an exceptionally well made movie.

By Sean PatrickPublished 2 years ago 9 min read
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Everyday of your life you are processing information whether you realize it or not. Whether it is something as simple as recognizing a hot surface through the context clues of heat rising from the surface or touching that surface and feeling the heat. That’s often something you can do without giving it much thought. This applies to processing visual information such as recognizing a vehicle stopped in the road and needing to stop your car to avoid an accident. These are complex in terms of the macro scale of everything that has built to this immediate situation but it is also mundane in how often you’ve done this and how you don’t linger in thoughts about doing these things.

This applies to noticing things about others whether it is a manner of speaking, inferring something about someone by the way they dress, or recognizing that someone is nervous by the way they speak, moving their hands while talking, or just generally appearing ill at ease. You can see these things and it would perhaps be redundant for this person to then tell you that they are nervous or ill at ease. So, how does this relate to the movie Antlers starring Keri Russell?

In this article, I will lay out how director Scott Cooper uses visual clues to tell you about his characters rather than simply having a character tell you what’s happening. One of the most common mistakes that bad movies make is telling you rather than showing you particular details about characters and the story being told. You may not even realize it but often your negative response to a movie is annoyance at being told something that you can clearly see for yourself. It’s as if the director is insulting you with the idea that you weren’t smart enough to catch a visual detail and so a character breaks the moment and the magic of film by telling you something you can already see for yourself.

With that, here are five terrific uses of visual storytelling in Antlers. Bear in mind that I actually ended up giving Antlers a mostly negative review. In total, the movie doesn’t quite accomplish what I believe it intended which is a movie that is both a dramatic story about abuse, unhealed emotional trauma, and the ongoing crisis surrounding addiction, and a horror movie story about an ancient native American legend, a monster called the Wendigo. These two story tracks failed to connect to create a satisfying whole movie, in my opinion. That said, Scott Cooper is still an incredibly talented director who crafts smart visuals and rarely, if ever, talks down to his audience by over-explaining.

Number 5: Julia’s Past Alcoholism

Julia Meadows, played by Keri Russell is a troubled woman who returns to her hometown in Oregon to live with her brother, Paul, played by Jesse Plemons, in their childhood home. Julia has returned home following a traumatic experience while living in California. We don’t learn exactly what drove Julia to want to move home but director Scott Cooper uses smart visual storytelling to give us enough context clues to get a good idea as to why Julia found trouble in her former home.

In a scene set inside of a convenience store Julia patiently waits in line. As she does this, her eyes scan the area around the counter and settle on a shelf full of liquor bottles. Her eyes fixate on the bottles with the camera bouncing from Julia’s eyes falling on the bottles, a shot of the bottles, a shot of Julia staring at the bottles, her body language expressing unease, and then Julia moves quickly to make her purchase and avoid the temptation to buy alcohol.

Later, as the story has progressed and Julia has become deeply concerned and stressed over her deeply troubled student, Lucas Weaver, played by Jeremy T Thomas, we return to the convenience store and this motif is repeated but with even more heightened visual cues, a faster pace, a more urgent score, all telling us that Julia really would like to have a drink to settle her nerves but she knows that a reliance on alcohol to deal with past traumas has already altered her life. We visually learn that Julia has suffered from alcoholism without anyone having to tell us about her alcoholism. No need for a character to stop the movie for dialogue about Julia’s alcoholism or tell us examples of how it affected her life. We saw it and since it is not a main subject of the movie but a notable character detail, we don’t need to linger on it.

Number 4: Who's in the attic?

Spoiler alert here: If you haven’t seen Antlers yet but are planning to, skip this part and come back after you see the movie.

Who is in the attic that Lucas keeps locked up while watching over it? It’s his father, Frank, played by Scott Haze. Lucas’s dad is a local drug dealer who, while using an abandoned mine to make Methamphetamine meets the legendary Wendigo which infects him and slowly takes over his body. The Wendigo curse is a constant hunger that must be met constantly and if it is not, the Wendigo will search for a human to consume and continue killing and eating anyone who gets in its way.

Through a series of visuals we learn a little about Frank, his two sons, and his new predicament. We see Frank get attacked by the Wendigo, we see Lucas killing a skunk and taking it home. We watch Lucas go into the attic and drop the dead carcass on the floor and we see Frank ravenously consume the carcass. Without a word, without anyone introducing themselves we learn visually that Frank survived the encounter with the Wendigo but became infected and was subsequently locked up in the attic by Lucas who cares for him while not knowing what is wrong with him or whether he might recover from whatever happened to him.

It’s very basic visual storytelling but it becomes notable because so many other movies would use a scene of Lucas speaking to someone about what he’s doing. An example of this might be giving Lucas a best friend character whom he confides in. Instead of us seeing him capture wildlife and deliver it to the attic, instead of seeing how Frank was injured and thus infected, a lesser movie would have Lucas simply explain what he is doing to this friend character in dialogue. Now, not all expository dialogue is bad but it would take much longer to explain the story and deal with the ramifications of telling someone this story than it does for us to visually witness Frank being attacked and Frank in the attic.

Number 3: Julia’s History of Abuse

Instead of having a scene where Julia talks to a counselor or her brother, someone who likely is already aware of her past trauma, Antlers uses terrifying visuals to hint at what Julia went through as a child and why it makes her more invested in recognizing trauma being inflicted upon Lucas. Setting the scene, Julia is at home, alone, and decides to look at and play the piano that she played as a child. As she does this she begins to daydream and that daydream becomes a nightmare as we see through her memory, her father, nude, on a bed clearly intended for a young girl. It’s very brief and not terribly explicit, the nudity is covered up, but the visual is shocking and carries enough visual clues to tell us that Julia is a survivor of sexual abuse. Cooper tells us in seconds what might have taken several minutes to tell us in dialogue.

A barren expanse reveals a town where logging was once an industry and is now gone.

Number 2: The Troubled Economics of Julia’s Hometown

One of the undercurrents of Antlers is the economic toll that this northwestern American town has suffered via the loss of industry. Not one character in Antlers comments on how the town is dying or how the economy and the loss of industrial jobs has harmed this community. We learn everything we need to know about this town in a series of smart visuals. In the opening scene we see an abandoned mining company, a series of decrepit buildings that stopped producing whatever was being mined years ago. There are several more of these glimpsed in other scenes and many parts of the town appear recently vacated by industrial buildings, some have been torn down and others have been left to rust and rot.

As Julia enters the convenience store I mentioned earlier she walks around a long line of people standing outside of an adjacent building. The sign on the building indicates that this is an unemployment office. The line outside is people coming to pick up checks or find out if there is any work available. No need for any dialogue explanation, this is all visual information and it is brilliantly used to underline why drugs and drug abuse have taken hold here, how Frank ended up in the mine shaft making methamphetamine and then coming face to face with the evil Wendigo monster. These visuals are rich and deep with meaning, they symbolize what this community, including Julia and her brother, are up against all while they are also trapped inside of a monster movie.

Scott Haze as Frank in Antlers

Number 1: Breaking Bad

How do I know that Frank was making Meth? Visual storytelling. The tense and exceptionally well crafted opening scene of Antlers begins with a little boy playing on the outside of this abandoned industrial mining company. He is frightened by something we don’t see and he runs to a nearby truck and crawls inside. We see Frank emerge from the door of the abandoned building to comfort his son and tell him not to go inside the building. He goes back inside and walks into the mine shaft using a torch to light the way and also wearing a gas mask. After a lengthy walk in this dark, dank mine, we find a room that Frank and his partner are using.

Inside this room are visual details straight out of an episode of Breaking Bad. We see empty boxes of cold medicine, we see cooking equipment and through these context clues we know that Frank is making drugs that he intends to sell to support his family. Once again, no on the nose dialogue, no need to make the scene longer by having Frank and his partner introduce themselves, they are partners, they know each other, even if we don’t know them, we can tell who they are without them telling us. It’s so simple and yet so strange how so many other movies fail at this seemingly simple detail.

Antlers starring Keri Russell and Jesse Plemons debuted in theaters on October 29th, 2021.

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About the Creator

Sean Patrick

Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.

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