Grace Dillon consults on new horror movie “Antlers”

“Antlers,” a new horror movie currently in theaters, prominently features the Windigo, a cannibalistic spirit from Indigenous ontology. Grace Dillon, professor of Indigenous Nations Studies at PSU, consulted on the film.

Dillon, who is herself Anishinaabe, was asked by director Scott Cooper and producer Guillermo del Toro to collaborate on the film to ensure that the depiction of the Windigo was respectful. 

While “Antlers” is set in a small Oregon town, the tradition of Windigo Manitou originates from Algonquian-speaking peoples along the northeastern coast. “There are really a lot of tribal peoples that are connected very strongly to this spirit entity,” she says. 

There are also different interpretations of the Windigo. “Our sense of Windigo — and that's what they went with — in our language, Anishinaabemowin, refers to greed. It's all about greed,” she says. 

When Cooper sent Dillon the script for “Antlers” and asked for her thoughts, Dillon responded with 16 single-spaced pages. Although the title for the film, Antlers, was already chosen and the Windigo designed by Guillermo del Toro was already depicted with antlers prior to her involvement, most of her feedback was responded to.

“Scott immediately wrote back,” says Dillon. “He shifted things all around and really followed, faithfully, the 16 pages of suggestions and requests and ideas and reforming that I suggested, and I was just absolutely wowed by that.” 

Dillon also sent Cooper objects that ended up being used in the movie, including the book Dangerous Spirits: The Windigo in Myth and History. The book was written by PSU professor Shawn Smallman and includes a foreword by Dillon. It discusses a time when the fur trade was falling off due to overhunting and Indigenous people were accused of being Windigo and placed on trial. 

“I mentioned Shawn's book and sent them a copy and so they show that during the film, and it's all worn and looks very well read,” says Dillon. 

Dillon was also invited to the “Antlers” film set to consult on the scenes involving the Windigo. “Guillermo del Toro was just wonderful, and I was able to see his spirit beast in person with all of the incredible details,” says Dillon. “They would check in with me and say, ‘Hey, what do you think? And how did that look?’ And they were very, very kind and generous,” says Dillon. 

On the set Dillon met Chris Ayre, a prominent Cheyenne and Arapaho filmmaker who was born in Portland and grew up in Klamath Falls. “He is one of our biggest native filmmakers,” says Dillon, noting that Ayre “very kindly was a mentor for me” during filming. 

Dillon hasn’t had a chance to see the finished movie yet, but she says she was impressed by how del Toro and Cooper used the Windigo to expose societal problems found in every community, including addiction, child abuse—and, notably, environmental devastation. 

“This film is about the dangers of extractivism, of mining. This is a metaphor that has become literalized—as Guillermo Del Toro talks about it,” says Dillon. “It's really also about climate and environmental justice.”