With spooky season now here, movie theaters are about to provide a whole host of scary material. One long-awaited suspenseful flick is Antlers, a movie that was made three years ago and meant to be released in 2020. Featuring a town beset upon by a creepy mythological creature, Antlers‘ current release date makes it the perfect flick to watch this Halloween.
Adapted from a short story, Antlers is directed and produced by award-winners and backed by a cast full of stars. Keeping many of its secrets under wraps so far, the film will finally get to scare audiences in just a short while. Here’s what moviegoers need to know about the Guillermo Del Toro-produced movie before they go out and watch it this Halloween weekend.
What Is Antlers About?
The story of Antlers involves a small town in Oregon with a mysterious and potentially deadly secret. It follows Julia Meadows, a school teacher who becomes concerned when Lucas Weaver, one of her students, is revealed to have some sort of supernatural animal or creature at his home. This comes after she teaches her class a lesson in local legends and mythology, but when the strange creature begins wreaking havoc across town, Julia and her sheriff brother Paul realize that one legend may be all too real.
When Is Antlers’ Release Date – and Why Was It Delayed?
Antlers was announced back in 2018, which is when all of its principal photography took place. Despite this, it initially wasn’t meant to release until April 17th, 2020, though this release window obviously wasn’t kept. By March of last year, it was removed from the release schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic and indefinitely postponed for a theatrical release.
Its next planned release date was February 19th of this year, but with things still not quite being back to normal, this was inevitably pushed back again. Removed from the release schedule again, the movie now has a much more fitting Halloween season release date of October 29th. Unlike many other recent horror movies, however, it will only be released theatrically and won’t see any sort of simultaneous streaming release.
Before then, it will also get a screening at the 2021 Beyond Fest film festival, segueing into several other screenings that lead up to the official theatrical release. The official press details read as such:
Searchlight Pictures and Beyond Fest announced today the World Premiere of Scott Cooper’s new horror-thriller ANTLERS as the October 11th Closing Night selection of the 2021 Beyond Fest, presented in partnership with the American Cinematheque. The premiere will launch a series of events leading up to the October 29th domestic theatrical release of the film, including a “Fantastic Fest Presents” Special Screening with Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas in San Francisco and Austin on October 11th; the International Premiere at the 54th Sitges International Film Festival (Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantastic de Catalunya) on October 13th; Closing Night of the 12th Annual Telluride Horror Show on October 17th; and a special Drive-In Screening at the 57th Chicago International Film Festival on October 15th. Additionally, Scott Cooper will host a horror retrospective in conjunction with Beyond Fest and the American Cinematheque this fall.
Who Are the Cast & Crew of Antlers?
Protagonist Julia Meadows is played by Keri Russell, while Katelyn Peterson portrays her younger counterpart in a flashback sequence. Jesse Plemmons portrays her brother, Paul, while Lucas Weaver is played by Jeremy T. Thomas. Other cast members include Graham Greene, Scott Haze, Rory Cochrane and Amy Madigan.
Antlers is directed by acclaimed filmmaker Scott Cooper, best known for his 2015 and 2017 films Black Mass and Hostiles. The screenplay was written by Cooper, C. Henry Chaisson and Nick Antosca, adapting a short story of Antosca’s titled “The Quiet Boy” that was published in the Guernica art and fiction magazine. It’s also produced by Guillermo del Toro, David S. Goyer and J. Miles Dale, giving the movie a lot of star power in front of and behind the camera. Distributed by Searchlight Pictures, it was one of the last films to be produced under the original Fox Searchlight Pictures title before Disney acquired the studio.
Does Antlers Have a Trailer?
The first trailer for the movie came out over two years ago, setting the tone for the film while still keeping many of its elements in the proverbial and literal dark. The supernatural monster is only barely glimpsed at, and that’s only toward the trailer’s end.
The second trailer showed much of the same footage, albeit while making things even moodier with no dialogue or narration like the first trailer. A little over a month ago, the movie’s final trailer was released.
This trailer gives more of a look at the story and some of the characters besides Lucas. Different glimpses of the movie’s monster, which is supposedly based on the mythical Wendigo, can also be seen, though a full image of it is still unseen. Moviegoers who’ve been anticipating seeing Antlers will finally get a chance to do so, however, when the beleaguered horror movie comes out in theaters in a few weeks.
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