Wendigo

Wendigo appears to be hit or miss for fans, but I admit I liked it. A bit formulaic, but the opening scene really set the mood well (despite the 2001 film appearing like it was shot in 1978). The acting ranged from awful (Jake Weber as George) to good (Patricia Clarkson as Kim) to great (Erik Per Sullivan AKA Dewey from "Malcolm in the Middle" AKA Miles).

The screenwriting was good, although it is a bit of a trope now that "the real monster is people." Putting myself in the place of the Dad, I'm not sure why he was such a douchebag starting immediately, and it was pretty obvious he wasn't going to make it out of the film. After you hit a deer on the road in the middle of nowhere, literally the best people to stumble upon are a group of deer hunters - they know they land, they probably have a truck, and the entire film could've been avoided if George had just offered to buy them all a round in exchange for a quick tow.

While some parts of the film bordered on racism in the way they portrayed Native Americans and also the awful Indian accent "curry" scene from George (again, was this filmed in 1978?), I thought overall the idea of the Wendigo was pretty well done despite the terrible special effects.

Compared to "The Last Winter" the soundtrack was 10x better. "Wendigo" also used some sappy piano, but it felt justified this time. They also had a few great scenes with no sound at all, which is a great touch when done right.

While there was a lot of room for improvement, I enjoyed this movie. I was scared a couple times, and I'd watch it again. I cared about Kim and Miles, and was worried about both of them. I even cared about the locals. The sled accident scene and aftermath was great, and it ushered in a pretty solid conclusion. They really utilized the child actor well, and overall I give it a B-

Letter grade: D
Bad acting and bad dialogue, especially in the beginning. They just didn’t act or speak like real people. Or maybe it was overacting. For example, the mom’s reaction at the car accident didn’t ring true at all. The acting actually improved a bit as the story progressed, or maybe I was just too numb at that point to notice. The plot was like spooky ghost stories we told each other on sleepovers in 6th grade. “I want my liver back!” That was the worst. Should have seriously been left out. Dewey, I mean Miles, was strange as usual but probably the best actor in the bunch. The ending was a question mark? Will the wendigo get Otis? I certainly hope so.

Review Contains Spoilers. Click to view...

Okay, for starters, why did they show us that little teaser of towing the truck at the beginning of the credits, but then NOTHING ELSE? We didn’t need to see that. It totally threw off my contemplative mindset, because I stopped thinking about poor baby Dewey with a precious little tear on his face and shifted to anxiously awaiting either some cliffhanger thriller moment or, at the very least, Wendigo bloopers - like a branch smacking it in the face or SOMETHING, but all I got was shaky credits and a reasonably incomprehensible song.

That issue aside.....

I liked it. Larry Fessenden. I had no idea that this one and “The Last Winter” were both directed by him. Budget constraints aside, this film had a decent script and really phenomenal actors. Plus, I’m ALWAYS a sucker for little Dewey from Malcom in the Middle. Fessenden has certainly got some filmography ideals he’s trying to achieve - I felt like the artsy stuff worked better in this one - especially that one blip with the frozen deer carcass kid doing the cool 360 camera effect. I could have done without the excessive fake branch interludes (would it have been so hard to do that with real branches?), and BOY, that Wendigo costume could have used some help. But hey, for clearly not having a very large budget, I think they did a pretty decent job, overall.

Are we going to talk about how lucid the dad was, while they held him up for a five minute reminiscent-fest outside the ER operating room? That was not a dude on his deathbed. I did LOVE Mile’s interpretation of the operating table when he snuck in - THAT was a creepy scene. But then the nurse hands the bereaved woman a dirty pair of boots and says, “sorry, there’s nothing we could do.” ..... oooohkay.

Pacing was slow and awkward, but the realness of the characters was just excellent. It definitely makes me want to watch more of Fessenden’s films, but, as far as the scary factor, it felt a bit lacking. I was certainly a bit unnerved, but not ever especially scared. Definitely no jump-scenes, and the suspense was more of a “handling a real-life crisis” suspense than a “watching a scary movie” kind, but I’ll allow it.

I give it a solid B. I wouldn’t be opposed to watching it again, which is pretty high praise from me.