Customer Reviews

Wendigo

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(39)

 

 

A thirty-something couple embark on a trip to the country for a winter vacation with their young son, Miles. Nearly at their destination, they hit a large buck on the road, which brings them the unwanted attention of a creepy backwoods hunter. The incident also awakens the spirit of a Native American myth long overdue for movie-monster treatment, the Wendigo. As things get weirder and weirder, Miles' parents attempt to help him make sense of things, but in fact Miles is the only person privileged to the Wendigo's full mystery.

Director Larry Fessenden has fashioned an entertaining, if not fully polished, film. His characters and plot are adequate if rarely surprising, and he relies largely on innovative camera work to draw his audience in, a strategy that works more often than not. Fessenden uses time-lapse photography and well choreographed sequences of woodland still shots to bring the forest to life around his characters. He also demonstrates remarkable restraint in relying on simple suggestion and the expressive winter landscape to animate his Wendigo. If Fessenden's themes are a little too obvious to be convincing, and if he falls back on a few cliches along the way, the smart visuals at least make "Wendigo" a frequently engaging film.

Big fan of atmosphere. The type of things that come to mind when looking for spooky, tangable tension in film could be; being chased by Jack Nicolson with axe in hand through a wintery maze or exploring the haunted interior of a large abandoned insane asylum via sweeping, drawn out camera pans accompanied by erie music. What 'Wendigo' gives the viewer is a truckload of atmosphere, but little else. The movie starts off in the right vein. The first 30 minutes are pretty good and I was thinking this could be a great horror flick. The rest was junk, and it keeps getting worse until the end of the movie when you don't know what just happened and why and what exactly was the point. Director Larry Fessenden Knows how to create a mood but doesn't know where to take it, leaving the plot flat and the characters boring. This is the type of film that might have benefitted from either some good CGI or leaving it up to the viewer's imagination as far as the title creature's appearence in the last ten minutes.... All and all a bit above most so-called horror films lurking out there, but just a bit.

Does it compare to gifted British writer Algernon Blackwoods chilling story? Not really.........but I have to admit that I was shocked concerning how much I enjoyed this film particularly the second time around. Now.......there are many opinions on why people like or dislike this movie so I don't want to be disrespectful of the views of others, but I honestly felt that for the most part that director Larry Fessenden made a pretty unique & errie film.

However.....I would not really class it as conventional "horror" but rather a tale of supernatural legend/lore if that makes any sense? A dear friend who is a production designer/artist was a guest at a special
screening of Phantasm in NY a couple years ago & Fessenden attended as he was screening a new film as well. My friend remarked to him that he & I really enjoyed Wendigo & how difficult it is to find new & innovative stuff, but we were a little put off by some of the creature shots that he chose to use in the film while there were shots in the special features that looked much better ,but other than that the film was pretty tight. Needless to say this did not go over well with the somewhat jaded director & he refused to reply? This is why I try to be a little careful because this comment closed the door on getting other interesting aspects regarding the film. All in all, the atmospere was great, shot entirely on location in rural upstate NY in the dead of winter & even without the snow you feel the cold dark woods & trust me, the mood throughout the entire film is unsettling & creepy.It very effectively conveys gloom & despair, plus.... the acting is first rate & the Native American score is quite haunting so to me, this is a very well put together film that I would highly recomend to anybody thats into errie local legends & lore or just spooky stories in general.

I want to start off by saying that I enjoy almost every horror/suspense/thriller movie ever made. As soon as I heard about Wendigo, I was instantly pulled in. I waited a year and a half for this DVD to come out, so I could finally see what all of the praise and commotion was about. Well, the story line is somewhat simple. Kim (Clarkson), George (Weber) and their eight-year old son, Miles (Sullivan), are city folk taking a weekend away at a friend's country farmhouse. On the way to the country farmhouse, they hit a buck that jumps out in front of them. Well, it just so happens that a creepy hunter named Otis and his 2 friends were following/hunting this buck. Otis clearly comes off as a psycho. Otis is quick to blame Geroge for hitting the buck and cracking its antler, like Gerorge had any other choice. Otis puts the buck out of its misery and continues to hassle Goerge on why he hit it. George explains that it was an accident that couldn't be avoided, but that's not a good enough reason as to what happened for Otis. Otis soon becomes extremely annoying before returning to his creepy state.

This incident supposedly awakens the spirit of the Wendigo, which is an evil, flesh-eating, spirit that is half man and half animal. Then the movie begins to drag. In fact the first hour doesn't really go anywhere. There is no building of tension, or answers given to what's going on. Onle a couple of creepy things happen in the first hour. One is Otis peeking in on Miles parents having sex in the living room, and two, the visions that Miles has throughout the first hour.

Miles finds relief from all of the traumatic events that have taken place in the form of a chimerical monster he invents, based on the legend that the Indian spirit told him. The Wendigo is an elemental spirit that appears in various forms, taking the shape of wind, trees, or a hungry deer-man with sharp antlers that roams the wilderness. All we are told is that it can fly at you suddenly without warning.

The last half hour of the movie is where everything comes full circle, and the movie begins to pick up pace. I don't want to give the ending away, but you do get to see the Wendigo or at least a couple forms of it. I also want to say that the movie relied a lot on shaking. Like in House on Haunted Hill(1999) when you see the doctor and he shakes violently. The father does this, and the Wendigo is mostly about this. In fact, most of the forest shots are jolted like this.

The best thing Fessenden pulls off in Wendigo is the amazing performance by Erik Per Sullivan (the youngest brother on Malcolm in the Middle). Sullivan's face conveys so much while seeming to do so little. You can see the fear in his eyes and even begin to understand where his character is coming from. There is a lot of promise in this young actor.

Although this movie takes a different pace from others, it lacks something that is needed to pull the audience in and keep their attention. Several people watching the movie got up and walked away because it was dragging so badly. When they came back 30 minutes later, it was like they never left. The story hadn't moved anywhere. Wendigo reminds me of the Blair Witch because the first hour is just beating around the bush, except the Blair Witch is building tension with the characters finding clues and realizing that they are lost and being hunted. In Wendigo, Miles is just seeing images. Also, the conversations between the adults become very repetative. I do have to say that for a low budget film, it was pretty good and that's why I gave it 2 stars. Mainly just for the last half hour. Though, Fessenden did his best with what he had to work with.

The ending leaves a lot to the imagination of the audience. If that is what you are looking for, then this is your kind of movie. There are some big suprises in the ending, well, one in particular that I didn't see coming. I would highly recommend watching Session 9 if you really want a dark, genuinely scary movie. Session 9 really has that creepy, hide your face, I can't believe that just happened kind of mood. It has to be one of the best horror movies of 2001 and I highly recommend the DVD.

As for the Wendigo DVD itself, it gets 4 stars in my book. Well, the cover is interesting to say the least. Special features on this disk include: 16:9 Widescreen Presentation, 5.1 Dolby Digital, 2.0 Dolby Surround, Searching for the Wendigo - Behind the Scenes Featurette, Director Commentary, Art Gallery, Trailer, Director and Cast Filmographies, Interview with Director Larry Fessenden, Subtitles: English and Spanish, Scene Selection, Digitally Mastered, and Interactive Menus. The feature running time is approx. 92 minutes. Rated R for a stong sex scene, language, and violent images.

Man, every once in a while you find a movie that really could have been cool if it just had a little more money pumped into it. 'Wendigo' is a great example of this.

As many other reviewers have pointed out, the atmosphere was really eerie. I thought the director (Larry Fessenden) did a great job in setting the mood and directing his cast. Other reviewers seem to disagree, but I though it was well acted. Problem is though, it was almost as if Fessenden knew that the special FX were going to be lousy. It seems to me like he tried to cover this up by dragging out the opening sequences and limiting the ammount of time that the Wendigo is on the screen to the bare minimum.

This really ended up hurting his final product. I wound up feeling like the movie turned out to be no better then a "pretty good" X-Files episode. Simply put, it took too long to get started and then ended too quickly.

Bottom line is, if you can catch it on cable or rent it at a reasonable rate, it's not at all a waste of your time. However, I honestly just couldn't justify spending the money to buy a copy

If you're expecting a monster movie where dozens of victims are torn to pieces by a CGI creature, forget it. WENDIGO is a dark tale, mostly shown from a child's point of view, about imagination, mythology, and making sense out of harsh reality. A boy named Miles (Erik Per Sullivan) is thrust into increasingly nightmarish circumstances when a family vacation becomes a deadly ordeal. After infuriating a vengeful hunter named Otis (John Speredakos), the family becomes the object of this unbalanced man's rage. The boy's parents (Jake Weber and Patricia Clarkson) attempt to deal w/ the building insanity by using logic and psychology, while Miles is introduced to the spiritual world of the WENDIGO. The supernatural aspects of the story could be fact or fiction, the result of an intervening spirit or halucination. From young Miles' perspective, it is all too real. It is his view that drives the movie...

This creepy indie film has a family heading out to upstate New York to a friend's cabin to get a bit of a vacation. On their way they hit a deer and earn the ire of a local named Otis. Otis and friend had been tracking the deer for hours. An antler was cracked by the accident making it worth much less. Eventually they manage to leave the hunters behind and make it to the house. The next day they go into town for some supplies and the boy meets a strange Native American who teaches him about the legend of the Wendigo. While not scared at first by the legend, the fear generated by the incident with the hunters begins to plague the boy.

Later, the father is injured while sledding with the boy. The boy gets scared and believes he is chased by the Wendigo. He is found hours later by his mother. Together they set out to find the father. They find him and the boy has another run in with the Wendigo. The action then moves to the hospital where the father receives treatment. The boy sees the Indian again and the film ends. Just stops. That's it.

According to an interview with the writer/director there is no monster in the film. He is trying to show how myths come about to help explain the world. But that doesn't explain the mysterious Indian that no one else seems to see. Most of the acting was pretty good although some of the hospital personnel were poorly portrayed (I especially didn't like the casual and cavalier way one staff member delivered some news and sauntered away). When the film ended I felt a little gypped. There were plot threads I wanted to know more about. We have a main character who may be wounded or dead and we never find out either way. There is so much more to the story and it is just not there.

Some of the special effects were quite good despite the small budget. Some were really quite eerie and creepy. I might have enjoyed the result a little better if I had not seen the interview but I would have still felt it just stopped instead of ending properly. Some good points and some bad. More like a promising first draft than a final. Unfortunately there will be no final coming. This is it. My feelings are mixed about this one so you will have to make up your own mind as to the importance of the flaws.

I didn't know much about this movie when I picked it up. I had seen a picture from the movie of some sort of bone/raindeer/monster thing that made me want to see what it was. Not at all what I had expected. Wendigo, in short, seems to be a story about the relationships of a family who go from good to traumatic. Jake Webber (Dawn of the Dead '04) is the star of the movie. He's a father who loves his son, and cares for his wife. He obviously pays more attention to the son, distractingly played by Malcom in the Middle's Erik Per Sullivan. The mother/wife, Patricia Clarkson, doesn't play a huge role in the movie, rather boring. Not a whole lot happens in the first half hour of the movie besides watching father-son bonding and learning a little bit about the Wendigo legend. The last 20 minutes or so of the movie is where things really take a turn. After a sleding accident, the family returns home at night to find a disturbingly tall creature in their front yard. The rest of the movie is kind of crazy if not cheesy but still graps your attention with the father-son parting scene at the end. This movie was not what I had expected, or wanted, but it didn't dissapoint me. It's just not a movie that will be seen again anytime soon.

Mostly I enjoyed this film. I liked that much is from the little boy's veiwpoint. There is a certain suspense and foreboding throughout, both physical and imagined. There are many small details that fill out the story. There is a scene at night when the boy is scared to pass by steps leading down to a dark place, and he jumps past them to minimize his exposure to whatever evils may be lurking down there...details like this remind me of the fear a child feels. He is a believable little boy, never seems like we are watching "acting". The parents are believable also. There are many moody shots of the forrest...that get a bit redundant and don't really lead anywhere. The ending is abrupt...and unsatisfying. When a story draws you in, you have a investment of time and concern for it. When the ending doesn't fill the emotional space it has created in your mind...it leaves you feeling frustrated and like you have been ripped off. The film is well shot and put togeather, I would just like to see a little more time on the script, concerning the ending, and also exploring/expanding the indian/spirit angle.

Wendigo is Larry Fessenden's third film in his horror trilogy, of which the previous two were No Telling and Habit. This film has more in common with No Telling than with Habit in that there is an emphasis on family--rather than the single life portrayed in Habit--and unfortunately also suffers from a weak ending, as did No Telling.

Yet the first 3/4 of the film is solid. One of Fessenden's real strengths is his ability to portray fully realized characters, giving them enough substance so that their interactions with other characters are both credible and fulfilling. The family dynamics here are very well developed.

Yet there's a missing element: the portrayal of Miles, the 8-year old son, is somewhat too sketchy to bring about the appearance of the monster, when it arrives, and what ensues. Because the appearance of the horrific is linked to the boy, there should have been a stronger link between his personality/ psychology and the supernatural. It's there, but nowhere near fully realized. This missing substance makes the film unsatisfying as it moves down to its conclusion.

For that reason, after an excellent buildup it feels like the film just--ends. It's an abrupt wrapup; the point here is not that no questions are answered, but that the film does not do what it should have done, which is to have provided substantially more of a connection between why Miles is the way he is and why, therefore, a monster might emerge based on his psychology.

So it feels like Fessenden is leaving too much up to the "imagination" of the viewer, kind of a lazy man's way of doing a psychological horror movie. Too bad, because most of the film is excellent.