Musique Fantastique

October 29, 2021

Javier Navarrete Scores ANTLERS, co-produced by Guillermo del Toro. Soundtrack out Today.

Just when you thought it was safe to go into the… forest.

ANTLERS is a 2021 supernatural horror film directed by Scott Cooper, adapted from Nick Antosca’s short story “The Quiet Boy,” which was originally published in Guernica magazine in January 2019, and produced by Guillermo del Toro, David Goyer & J. Miles Dale. The film takes place in an isolated, rural Oregon town, in which a middle-school teacher and her sheriff brother become embroiled with her enigmatic student, whose dark secrets lead to terrifying encounters with a legendary ancestral creature who came before them. The film stars Keri Russell, Jesse Plemons, Jeremy T. Thomas, Graham Greene, Scott Haze, Rory Cochrane, and Amy Madigan.

ANTLERS is scored by composer Javier Navarrete, known for scoring Guillermo del Toro’s THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE AND PAN’S LABYRINTH, WRATH OF THE TITANS, BYZANTIUM, and others. A digital soundtrack to ANTLERS has been released by Hollywood Records and is a available on Amazon, Spotify, and the other usual sources.

ANTLERS was theatrically released in the United States today by Searchlight Pictures, after being delayed twice from an April 2020 release date due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Navarrete’s score revolves around piano and electric guitar as well as an intriguing use of children’s choir, as the composer described in a new interview with Daniel Schweiger for the Film Music Institute. “Piano has always the simplicity and the clarity necessary to evoke children and other elementary states of mind,” explained the composer. “Electric guitar is interesting because it talks about contemporary America.” Regarding the children’s choir, Navarrete said: “We found that at least one child of the choir was able to reach the upper C with a beautiful piercing tone, and I used it for the beginning and also for the end. There are also some processed voices that are created by overlaying the choir with detuned, sampled voices singing the same lines that resulting in an effect that is so real and eerie at the same time.” Read Daniel Schweiger’s complete in-depth interview with Navarette about scoring ANTLERS and much else, here.

-via filmmusicreporter and other sources

Watch the 2019 trailer to ANTLERS: