I read short story "The Quiet Boy" by Nick Antosca (source material for upcoming horror movie "Antlers") and had a few questions, hoping someone might want to discuss!

I'm really excited for the upcoming movie Antlers, based on the short story "The Quiet Boy" by Nick Antosca. I read it recently and loved it - it gave me the genuine creeps, as someone who usually doesn't scare easily. The short story is also available for free online.

A few questions I had after reading it:

What do you think happened to cause the dad and little brother to become monsters, or, how do you think the ritual went? We know that when Julia entered the house, she saw the pentagram with the goat eye symbols drawn on the dining table, with the empty bottles of rat poison. This would imply the pentagram had something to do with the ritual itself, and then Frank Weaver used the rat poison to kill himself and Todd or they were killed in the ritual, but what else specifically do you think happened? Also, who else may have been involved in terms of an occult person or whoever who had the ability to make it happen? My theory is that the Weaver's neighbor had something to do with it. When Julia goes to check out the Weaver house, the neighbor (creepy guy who seemed drugged out of it) warned against it and then went inside his own house, seemingly wanting to avoid being around. That gave a vibe to me that he may have been involved, like maybe he was the person who helped Frank Weaver do the ritual, and knew what was in the house.

Also, what do you think was going on with the "ONE MORE STEP" moment? When Julia was in the house, there were three rooms: Kitchen, Dining Room, Living Room, each increasingly darker as there was less light coming in from outside. Julia found the ritual stuff in the mostly-dark dining room, next to the pitch-black living room. The only thing she could see in the living room, before it got too dark to see, was the outlines of the dead bodies of Frank and Todd. But she also saw the shadow of what she thought was Todd, the little brother, running into that room. There was a sense of a malevolent presence (Frank) looming over her, but when she kept turning around there was nothing, and she felt that at its strongest when she was just one step away from the darkness. She then felt a sense that it was looming right above her shoulder, and she heard "ONE MORE STEP" and ran.

Clearly, the evil spirit(s) wanted her to step into the darkness, and Julia very narrowly missed a horrifying trap, but what would have happened? My first thought was that the monsters would get her there since their only weakness is light, so they could reach her in the dark, but that contradicts the other part about how the monsters are only unleashed when the bodies are taken out of the house.

And what the dead animals in the basement? The story Lucas wrote about "The Three Wolves" (or bears in the movie) seems like Lucas was bringing the dead animals to feed the monsters so they wouldn't go out and eat people, implying the dad and brother were in the basement eating the animals (or feeding off their pain etc), but that also contradicts the thing about how the monsters turn once the bodies get taken out.

Overall I really loved this story. My only peeve was that in the end, Julia should have lit bigger things on fire, like the sofa, to get a fire that lasts instead of just using papers. I found the story original and terrifying, and I really hope the movie raises the bar for horror movie intensity (although I'm sure they're probably changing the end). I want real terror at a new level here, intense enough to cause people running from the theater like they did during release of "The Exorcist."