Directed by
Larry Fessenden

Writing credits
Larry Fessenden

Patricia Clarkson .... Kim
Jake Weber .... George
Erik Per Sullivan .... Miles
John Speredakos .... Otis
Christopher Wynkoop .... Sheriff Tom Hale
Lloyd Oxendine .... Elder
Brian Delate .... Everett

R
91 min

Website Location: http://www.theWendigo.com/

Artisan Home Entertainment, after a string of second-rate direct-to-video titles, tries its level best to improve with Wendigo. And I've got to admit, if you judge solely by the DVD menu they've got a real winner on their hands. The menu comes packed with a montage of vaguely interconnected scenes that let you know, in no uncertain terms, that SOMETHING IS REALLY VERY WRONG HERE and that you'll probably want to find out just what. An effective use of background music, especially if you have the surround sound equipment to back it up, augments the eerie atmosphere the menu projects.

And when you finally push the play button, a series of playing cards appears on the screen before finally launching the movie. A clever touch, I think...it adds that extra note of "hey, what's going on here, anwyay?"

But what we've got here is the start of a family vacation that will a little too obviously be Going Very Wrong (tm) shortly.

And indeed, it does. When the family car accidentally collides with a deer on the road, it also causes the family to run afoul of a hunting party that had been tracking the victim deer for several hours.

Now, I don't know how many of you are deer hunters, but living in a state that considers Opening Day of Deer Season a marginal state holiday, I can understand and tell you that these guys are gonna be sublimely pissed off. Indeed, one of them, Otis, is profoundly pissed off, making several threatening gestures with his scoped rifle in the father of our family's direction.

And Otis isn't the type to give up without a fight--the family reaches its temporary residence and finds a bullet hole in the window.

And a bullet embedded in the wall.

Yipes, buddy! You've just taken your family on a vacation in the Cahulawatchee River valley!

This leads to the discovery of what's causing most of the bizarrities in the area--the Wendigo. I hand it to Artisan here for actually making the story connect with other similar wendigo stories, especially as in the one offered up in Ravenous. This is almost identical to Ravenous' story of the mythical beast.

The most bizarre part of the movie comes about an hour in, when Miles (played handily by Malcolm in the Middle's Erik per Sullivan) is chased through the woods by twigs. Seriously. The shot is of course a first-person shot chasing Miles, but all we see are a couple of twigs in the shot. There's nothing more indescribably weird than this.

I'm watching a child being chased through the woods by twigs.

And simply put, you're going to have to pay REALLY CLOSE ATTENTION to the last half hour of the movie. Plain and simple. Men in deer suits attack pickup trucks demanding the return of their livers, special effects pop up for reasons I still can't understand, hospital scenes come and go. And then the movie fades into a folk-rock, acoustic guitar song at a junction in which I was expecting them to actually EXPLAIN SOMETHING.

The special features are a lot less confusing, and offers up subtitles and audio options. Also included are a trailer, interviews with the director, an art gallery, filmographies of the cast and director, and a small documentary called "Searching for the Wendigo" which is actually rather interesting.

So, really...all in all, Wendigo is actually a pretty decent attempt on Artisan's part. It's two thirds of the way there--if only someone had paid attention to that last half hour to make sure it actually worked with the first hour.

And while I've got your attention, I want to direct you all to my brand-new, totally self-designed website, right here: