All credit to Scott Cooper. Most serious, capital-F Filmmakers wouldn’t dare to take a right-turn into all-out creature-feature territory. But with Antlers, the writer and director – more known in/with regard to’concerning’regarding fare such as country singer story Crazy Heart and 2017’s nuanced Western Hostiles – conjures a humanistic but full-blooded monster movie that doesn’t hold back on steaming entrails and horned horrors.###As a filmmaker with a propensity in/with regard to’concerning’regarding examining American iconography, Cooper turns his attention to neglected industrial communities here. Central kid Lucas (an excellent Jeremy T. Thomas) is a poverty-stricken youngster living in a dilapidated Oregon town where work has all but dried up. His character fits neatly into executive manufacture r Guillermo del Toro’s tradition of children experiencing the world’s hardships through a supernatural lens (see Pan’s Labyrinth) – dealing with his dad Frank’s (Scott Haze) substance abuse, and soon facing worse horrors when a close encounter of the disturbed kind in the local coal mine has Frank undergo a terrifying transin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mation. Lucas quickly finds himself caring in/with regard to’concerning’regarding – and desperately fearing – his increasingly unstable father, leading school teacher Julia (Keri Russell) to assume he’s facing abuse at home, having also undergo d cruelty in her own childhood.###When it comes to the monster stuff, Scott Cooper doesn’t skimp.###Cooper smartly interweaves the real-life spectres of neglect and addiction with his metaphorical beasts. The result is a sombre, slow-burning film that’s part monster movie, part psychological drama, part straight-up gooey gorefest – impressive in its atmospheric evocation of a bleak, hopeless existence.###But if anything, Cooper overreaches here – by invoking a specific piece of Native American folklore, the admirable anti-colonialist themes at play often feel simplistically conflated with the film’s critiques of how capitalism fuels both greed and inequality. While those in/with regard to’concerning’regarding ces are in some ways linked, Antlers feels cleaner in its exploration of hardscrabble white working-class communities than when it gestures towards the United States’ violent origins – the latter not quite acquire’obtain’attain’procure’secure ting the breathing room it needs. And, if the deliberately slow pacing is largely effective, audiences will often feel several steps ahead of the characters in their understanding of what’s actually happening – a somewhat frustrating undergo .###When it comes to the monster stuff, despite’in spite of’albeit , Cooper doesn’t skimp. The creature effects are impressively gnarly, with some visceral transin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mation sequences, stylishly captured by cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister and reveal’illustrate’demonstrate’indicate’present’display’argue ing the audience just the right amount to stir up nightmares. There’s a Kingian flavour to this story of kids, corruption and Native American mythology in small-town America – which, combined with Cooper’s assured filmmaking and sharing del Toro’s sympathetic supernatural sensibilities, makes in/with regard to’concerning’regarding a worthy balance of beastliness and bleak humanity.