Avis des critiques

The mood is overly gloomy and lacking del Toro’s signature sparkle. Still, it’s satisfyingly gross – there’s plenty of black bile, crunching bones and half-chewed bodies.

We are treated to a film with a vague understanding of arthouse horror and no capacity for subtext. Time may ultimately be kind to Cooper’s first foray into the horror genre, but the present holds nothing but darkness.

Heartfelt performances from such terrific actors as Keri Russell and Scott Haze fail to turn this hotchpotch of competing themes into cohesive drama. It strives boldly and commendably. America’s opioid crisis, that continent’s industrial decay, childhood sexual abuse, alcoholism, environmentalism and poverty are shoehorned into an uninspired creature feature that manages one measly jump scare in 99 minutes.

Antlers sustains a note of unyielding moroseness through its muted palette and melancholic strings. It’s rare to see a monster movie, or a big-studio movie, this relentlessly dour... Yet the film’s aspirations to prestige smother its immediacy, the thrills of the genre it’s supposedly occupying. Antlers fancies itself a message movie, but on that front it’s muddled at best.

Trauma, grief, abuse, addiction—these are not new themes to the genre and those quick to write off the trend of “elevated horror” will find plenty to criticize here, but they’d also be writing off this film's impressive craft, committed ensemble, and notable ambition. "Antlers" may fall short of its potential, but I suspect it will find a fan base over the years.

The film’s self-seriousness is as oppressive as its setting’s monotonous fog... “Antlers” is merely a jumbled presentation of awful things, the bones of a good idea with none of the meat.

The net effect isn't necessarily bad assuming that expectations are modest, and there's something to be said for a more understated, small-scale approach to horror that doesn't confuse body count with scares. Yet considering where the story starts, the place where "Antlers" winds up doesn't leave much to hang one's hat on.

The film piles depressing metaphor on top of depressing metaphor to its own detriment. Instead of making you think, it kind of just makes you scratch your head.

While [Scott's] previous two features Black Mass and Hostiles failed to find tension in their deliberately tedious pacing, Antlers strikes the balance between methodology, terror, and blue-collar dynamics.

“Antlers” is such a slow burn that at times it grinds to a halt, the dark and dim cinematography by Florian Hoffmeister almost punishingly creepy... This dark and dreary monster movie is indeed horrific, but it’s also undoubtedly a downer, for more reasons than likely intended.

A shapeless blancmange of extreme gore and ponderous soap, uneasily trying to do so much more than it’s capable of. There’s probably a semi-decent creature feature here and maybe, with a hefty amount of redrafting, a semi-decent human drama but as it stands it fails at both, a satisfying, coherent film buried underneath copious amounts of animal guts.

[Cooper] is an enormously gifted storyteller who infuses nearly every moment of this movie with a sense of despair and hopelessness, as some genuinely goodhearted but in most cases deeply damaged souls struggle mightily to battle a mythical, flesh-eating creature from the deep woods while also dealing with real-world trauma that’s equally frightening.