Wendigo (2001)

When I was maybe 13, I’d go to Blockbuster any chance I got. I’d browse the shelves for the evil-est looking horror flicks available. I didn’t give a single fuck. One of them was this movie. This was maybe the third or fourth horror flick I ever saw - back then I didn't get to see most of this whole genre until I was 12 or 13 and neither of my parents watched it, so I just discovered everything piecemeal and random, just whatever Blockbuster had. It was an interesting evolution. I'll show you why now.

Director: Larry Fessenden

Starring: Patricia Clarkson, Jake Weber

IMDb

This thing starts with a family of three hitting a deer on a snowy country road! Some bearded asshole tries to get in their face because HE was gonna fuck that deer ahead of them!! Oops, did I say that last thing out loud? I ought to be more sensitive about that stuff.

They get to an old country house where the dad just exercises his own weird stereotypes, talking endlessly to his wife about how that dude on the road was such a rude piece of shit. Dude, get over it! You’re not handling it well. There’s a whole trippy psychedelic dream sequence with the son, too, mostly just looks like the camera guy took mushrooms and then left the camera on!

Some weird old man at a gas station hands the kid a totemic stone figure of the Wendigo, which is a kind of mythical figure that has apparently infused itself into strange toys at gas stations! What a world! In 100 years some idiot kid is gonna find a statue of Ronald McDonald and that will awaken an even worse murderous idol spirit to come and wreak vengeance. And I’ll be here for it, because by then I am guessing none of us will have a choice in this fucking capitalist hellscape we’ve created.

By the way, the old man apparently may not have actually existed as the manager says nobody else works there! Weird! The gas station clerk reacts to this news of a mysterious man pretending to work there with all the surprise of a catatonic zombie. Who can blame the girl? She probably makes $6 an hour and gets spit on by weirdos all day. Woohoo, America!

At some point, despite the father’s objections, the movie continues on. The movie jumps over several hurdles of wasting time. This shit could get an Olympic medal with all the scenes of this family doing fucking nothing. I have to say the production value is something – I’m not gonna grab the low-hanging fruit and bash this movie for it, but some of these low-budget productions just fascinate me. I mean, the camera shakes like a tornado victim is holding it, the actors act like they have guns to their head and the picture quality is so bad that you wonder if they didn’t just hold a piece of greasy plastic film over the lens on a dare. But it’s all part of the charm. This feels like it was made by people with no money who just left the camera on while people just did whatever on set. I dig the authenticity.

The bad guy is conveyed via sticks from the forest waving in your face, like it’s a game you played when you were a nine-year-old. Most of the action shots are so dark you’ll swear the light guy was off fucking the secretary from the studio. But hey! That’s what horror was back then! Real horror has no production values and feels like maybe, it might’ve been made out of some weird fetish! That’s what it is!

Somehow, during an expedition in the woods, amid all the movie’s weird trippy dark psychedelia, the dad gets shot. I don’t even know if they had the budget for that effect, given everything else. Was he really shot? Were the makers of this film that sadistic? Even if so, I respect them. We all have to make sacrifices for our art, and some of us have to do it for straight to DVD blockbuster picks that only bored stoners end up seeing, which end up on specialty horror streaming sites 20 years later.

God, how long does it take to get him to the hospital? Don’t you know we can piece it together and fill in the blanks in our heads? We don’t exactly need to see every bathroom break these idiots take. It’s not some kind of fucking Richard Linklater biopic with a progressive theme and a whole concept to spend 20 years behind the filming. Nobody is gonna be lost if you skip a few steps and just show us the dude in a damn hospital bed!

They have a whole sequence where they don’t know if the dad was shot – then you can see a bullet hole right there in his gut. These damn doctors graduated from Mr. Magoo’s University for the Somewhat Well-Sighted. Oh my god, has medical knowledge failed us here in Bum Fuck Nowhere? My god.

The redneck dude from earlier in the movie turns out to be the one who shot the dad. His karma comes because the little boy’s Wendigo statue wants revenge. In a bizarrely shot shaky camera sequence of the forest, the trees like they’re seizure patients, the dude ends up dying. He fires his gun a few times. We get a brief, hazy glimpse of the monster – a naked person with a deer head. I’m sure this was a dejected extra from Eyes Wide Shut that just wandered onto the wrong set; don’t get fucking overreacting about it...

Honestly, I didn't mind this that much. My film education is a thousandfold what it was when I saw this last. But there's a charm to the total DIY factor here, with everything the movie did so bizarrely but while trying to craft a certain atmosphere. They had an idea here. It wouldn't be as creepy without the low-fi production. It's not great and spends too much time waffling around, but I can't say it's the worst I've ever seen.

All in all the Wendigo is my favorite Marvel Universe character and I can’t wait for the long-anticipated sequel that will surely be inspired by this whole coronavirus thing going on. They do have a lot of time to spend indoors. Better get on it.

Image copyright of its original owners; I don't own it.

The Platform (2020)

The Platform is a Spanish horror comedy about a strange prison concept where food is distributed via a system where a giant platform (name drop!) lowers through hundreds of levels and people are supposed to be fair. Unfortunately, people are selfish! There. That’s the entire fucking movie. But they milked it for like an hour and a half, so I guess I have to review it.

Director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia

Starring: Ivan Massagué, Antonia San Juan

IMDb

Co-written with Tony and Michelle.

This guy Goreng, the main character, apparently agreed to be part of this, as apparently it’s one way to get a degree. How does that work? Is there a university that’s like ‘well, you can take classes and educate yourself and prove you’re worthy, OR you can go be in jail in a filthy hole for a while!’ How does that make any fucking sense?

The main dude wakes up with some crazy old man. There are some scenes of them doing naked yoga together (???) and reading and bickering and whatnot – it’s all a big waste of time to eat up screentime.

The main meat of the film for the first act, the idea that this platform brings food down every day and they’re supposed to ration it out – but of course, human greed gets in the way and nobody does it that way. Every man for himself, etc. I’m not sure who’s benefiting from this. Is it a science experiment? If so, it’s gone on long enough, I am almost positive. Is it just the cruelty of an uncaring barbaric system? Nice social commentary I guess. But we got over an hour of movie left and I already get the idea! Uh oh!

The old dude ties Goreng up and tries to eat him. Wow – they went straight from honeymoon marriage right into the homicidal phase. They don’t waste time. The old dude reassures Goreng he won’t eat his genitals – well, that’s nice of him.

Where is security during this? And was it worth the degree yet??? I HAVE TO KNOW! But then a crazy lady, I suppose the physical manifestation of Deus ex Machina, comes and murders the old dude just in time. What a convenience.

Then Goreng gets stuck with this other lady who has a dog, who I guess was the administrator for this place who let him in in the first place? Why is she there? I have no idea and the movie doesn’t seem to care. Character development is never really a concern here. They don’t really explain anybody’s motives. This lady is mostly there for exposition we couldn’t get elsewhere, basically spoonfeeding the audience the whole plot about how the prisoners are supposed to ration out food and there should be enough for everyone if they do. We get it! The blinking garish neon sign of your “smart social commentary” is starting to hurt my eyes!

In between all of this, the ghost of the old man returns to haunt Goreng and, mostly, waste more screen time. 98% of the reason for this is wasting time!

I guess some type of a plot finally starts up as the lady and Goreng hatch a plot to try and regulate everything to help everyone eat. The lady just tries to ask nicely, but unfortunately, the kinds of people who exist in a prison like this don’t respond to asking nicely. Goreng then threatens to shit in their food if they don’t listen. Finally, character development! He doesn’t ever shit in the food that we see, though. That’s a shame as it would have made this movie better to me at least a little.

They spend an exorbitant amount of time trying to make this happen and it doesn’t work, so the lady ends up hanging herself, with the intention of letting Goreng eat her. This leads to more hallucinations of the old dude telling him to eat her. The old dude’s ghost also says he was more polite because he didn’t just stab anyone to death – instead he was nice about his homicide attempts. Man, I don’t know, I guess this word vomit is supposed to be a ‘moral gray area’ type of character thing for Goreng. It doesn’t work at all and is stupid as shit! Good job!

I guess then he ends up with this other guy who is sort of manic and crazy, trying to climb up each level to get to the hole. Goreng and this guy team up to make a ‘statement’ to the administration of this prison by stopping anyone from eating the food. This is actually a little bit of an interesting plot, which I assume is why they made us wait an hour before getting to it – because the writer/director/etc are sadistic fucks and want us to experience the movie the same way the characters do, starved for anything of substance.

So then we get a few somewhat OK moments as Goreng and the guy try and stop anyone from eating in order to save food for the lowest levels and ‘make a statement’ - I’m not sure if both of those are the same goal, or if one contradicts the other; it’s not that clear. There are a few bloody ass fight scenes that are kinda entertaining, if exploitative and goofy. And at least Goreng finally has a fucking goal here. Imagine that – a character who wants something! It’s like finding an oasis after dying of thirst in a desert in this fucking movie.

They find a small child on one of the levels and end up saving her rather than finishing their mission. I guess children weren’t allowed in here which is why this is shocking. But as we’ve seen, this prison doesn’t care if inmates cannibalize each other or hang themselves! So it’s just whatever. They decide they’re fucked anyway and just stay down there, instead letting the little girl ride up on the platform, deciding SHE is now the ‘statement’ to the administration! Ooohhh!

...Nah, they’ll probably just give her to an orphanage and keep doing things the way they always did. Or was that cynicism and pointlessness the ‘message’ all along? If so, fuck this shit anyway.

No world-building to help us contextualize anything, and I hated all these characters actively throughout the movie. I sure hope ole Goreng felt good about his choices to do this to get a degree. Don’t watch this shit, man. This movie sucks and I'd prefer getting the coronavirus to watching this, which I'll regret writing if I do end up getting the virus.

Image copyright of its original owners.