In "Antlers," the wendigo emerges in a small Oregon town that has been depleted and demoralized by the closing of its central industry (a local mine), environmental havoc, and the rise of drug use, poverty and depression. Awakened within the depths of the mine, it possesses first a local drug dealer (Scott Haze) and then one of his two small sons. That leads to a horrific chain of events that a teacher (Keri Russell), having just recently returned to the town after fleeing an abusive childhood, attempts to stop.
Although the film is based on a short story by Nick Antosca called "The Quiet Boy," Cooper says he changed and expanded the story in the screenplay to incorporate his thematic concerns.
"I wanted the film to be about generational trauma — which is not in the short story," he explains. "I also wanted to deal with this notion that these are these small towns that are left behind, towns and small cities that owe their success to a particular industry whose civic life was kind of built around a factory or mine. Then the fabric of that town changes once the mine or the factory closes.
"So how do you tell that in a monster film dealing with Native American issues of colonialism and the wendigo?" he asks rhetorically. "Not easily ... but look, if you aren't trying to make a film that — certainly a horror film — that as I mentioned earlier kind of holds up a dark mirror to our fears and anxieties, well, it's not something that's going to really interest me."
