Wendigo (2002)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Wonderful Movie

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I first learned of the Wendigo many years ago in one of Alvin Schwartz's "Scary Stories" books: according to that story, the Wendigo - after calling your name in the wind - drags you along, and then pulls you up into the sky and pulverizes you. While it sounds like a pretty bizarre notion, Schwartz's story turned it into a fairly coherent idea.The movie "Wendigo" doesn't. It basically consists of every horror flick cliché: family moves to new house and strange things start happening, anyone who harms them is asking for it, and everyone had better listen to the old Indian guy. I've seen this stuff so many times that I no longer bother to count.Anyway, avoid it. Patricia Clarkson and Erik Per Sullivan (Dewey on "Malcolm in the Middle") have done far better than this.

This movie is S-L-O-W. Spent most of the movie actually waiting for it to 'begin'.The setting was bleak, the script was bleak, the cinematography was bleak, the plot was bleak, the budget was low (not that all low budget movies are bad, but this one had no redeeming features).The plot was more consumed with a vengeful, slightly deranged hunter than the actual Wendigo which made a very brief appearance toward the end of the movie. This in itself was disappointing as this 'Wendigo' was just a bizarre mix of a tree and a stag. Everything about the movie was uninspiring.The parents of the little boy appeared to be rather aloof and at times seemed completely detached from their son. Whether this was down to bad acting or a bad script I'm not sure, but it only heightened my disappointment and boredom levels.There was no food for thought, nothing to pique an interest. With no real intrigue or chill factor, this movie creaked along so painfully, you just couldn't care less what happened by the end.Wendigo's ambiance reminds me of the dull movie shown at the awards ceremony toward the end of 'Mr Bean's Holiday': a movie which is artistic and nonsensical, trying too hard to to be deep and meaningful, but coming across as pretentious and boring.I would never want to watch this again. I only watched it to the end in the vain hope that something interesting might happen ... but it didn't.

Wendigo tells the tale of George (Jake Weber) his wife Kim (Patricia Clarkson) & their young son Miles (Erik Per Sullivan) who are on their way to an isolated house deep in the snowy woods not too far from New York City for the weekend, however tragedy strikes almost immediately as they run into a deer & badly injure it. It seems that three hunters had been tracking the deer for 18 hours & one of them, Otis (John Speredakos), is rather annoyed at George for wounding his prey & worse still breaking it's antler which is worth a fair bit of money. George manages to keep the situation under control & is glad to get to the house, they all spend some quality family time together but inbred redneck Otis still seems to be holding a grudge. Miles is also told by a spooky local (Lloyd Oxendine) that an evil spirit called Wendigo is out there, somewhere in the dense, hostile woods waiting to be called upon...Edited, written & directed by Larry Fessenden I personally didn't think to much of Wendigo. The script doesn't know what it wants to be, this is as much of a family bonding drama as it is horror. The Wendigo creature that the title refers to doesn't appear until 10 minutes before the end & until that point has no relevance to the story except as some local legend, it isn't really a monster indiscriminately killing innocent people so forget about any high body count as only one person dies for sure & no-one actually dies on screen. The film is painfully slow at times & virtually nothing happens, family drive to isolated house, kill deer, annoy local idiot & that's about it! There are very few character's, only four main ones, the dialogue isn't that interesting & it takes itself far too seriously for it's own good. I just found the whole thing boring, dull, uneventful & a bit of a waste of 90 minutes of my life which I will never get back. Wasn't keen on the nothing ending either.Director Fessenden does a good job at creating a nice atmosphere throughout with the nice snowy, desolate, remote & bleak locations & they certainly would make a great location for a good horror, unfortunately this isn't it. It has the look of The Blair Witch Project (1999) about it, woods, jerky hand held camera movements & a certain documentary style & feel to it. The Wendigo creature is barely seen & when it does make an appearance at the end it looks like a man in a deer suit running through the woods, then again that's probably what it was. Forget about any gore, a dead deer, some chopped up deer meat, someone is hit with a hammer & that's yer lot.Technically Wendigo is alright & has a certain unique style about it, but then so did The Blair Witch Project & look at how many people hated that. I personally didn't think the acting was up to much & Weber in particular seems totally uninterested & lifeless.As far as I'm concerned Wendigo is another low budget boring piece of crap that was as exciting as watching paint dry, what's wrong with good old fashioned exploitation, monsters, blood, gore, murder & off beat likable character's? Horror film fans might want to give it a go but even they might find the whole thing rather tame & flaccid. I did like the end credits though as they scrolled up over some nice blue silhouette's of trees as flakes of snow fall...

I recently viewed this film for the first time. Now, I do admit that I am a fan of gory horror movies, but at the same time movies that intrigue the human mind. By no means should a horror movie be classified by the amount of gore because there have been dozens of great movies in the past that have scared the wits out of me without the need of graphic violence. Now as you read the first half of my comment, you see that I have yet to talk about the film. The film was quite similar in that the first half all but gave me the greatest sleep I've had in years. The opening scene possibly makes you think something exciting is going to happen and yet nothing does. To be perfectly honest, as I was watching, I had to check the genre classification of this film to make sure I saw right because in now way could this be viewed as a horror film as there is NOTHING scary about it what so ever. The actual creature (which I practically laughed at when it first appeared on screen) that is supposed to scare you did nothing of the sort. The only person who gave the movie any life was John Speredakos whose character (as little as it appeared) was still quite plausible. The movie was only an hour and half long and the first hour had NOTHING. Yet, they still managed a sex scene which proves to me that the director felt that sex would grab the audience's attention more so than an actual "thrill". The acting was good, but there was no substance to the plot and I was very disappointed. Luckily, I caught it on IFC and did not have to pay money for such a wrongly-classified film.