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.