In lieu of an unintentional pun considering the film’s plot, Larry Fessenden’s Wendigo is a stunningly impressive shot-in-the-dark. Aptly labeled as Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining meets John Boorman’s Deliverance, the prowess of the film’s script allured an aggregation of extremely competent, reputable actors, all of which rise to the occasion. The sheer virtuosity of Wendigo–which, if one were naïve in regards to the film’s history, would swear it was the product of Hollywood’s best talents–stands, not only as a great horror flick, but as an outstanding, if not daunting, cinematic effort.
A photographer, George (Jake Weber), his psychologist wife, Kim (Patricia Clarkson), and their son, Miles (Erik Per Sullivan), retreat into the Catskills from their hectic New York lives. En route to the cabin of a friend, George inadvertently hits a deer and is confronted by a band of local hunters, one of which, Otis (John Speredakos), takes issue with the paterfamilias, claiming that the latter took what was rightfully his, that is, the animal’s life. When the family arrives at the cabin the next day, they not only discover that their nearest neighbor is Otis, but that the cottage is mysteriously and ominously riddled with bullet holes. Shortly thereafter, George is victim to another misfortune which will alter his family’s life forever.
The horror genre is stigmatized due to its tendency to eschew characterization in favor of visual spectacle. However, Fessenden’s feature not only compensates for the sins of its horror brethren, it puts to shame most notable dramatic efforts, which rely largely upon the introduction and development of its players. Yet Fessenden accomplishes such while nonetheless remaining mindful of his audience for, while presenting and delving into his various characters and their predicaments, he proceeds to create and sustain an almost unbearable amount of tension and anxiety in his viewers.
From almost the opening frame, Wendigo immediately explores its central characters but, just as we begin to assimilate ourselves to the various personages, Fessenden jars us out of our lull of voyeuristic comfort by having George collide with a deer. Masterfully, when our pulses nearly regain their normative rate, we instantaneously hold our breath as Otis verbally accosts George, which leaves us to mimic the emotional cues from Miles in that we are equally susceptible to the unpredictable tension between the hunter and the family man. Dauntingly, just as we assume that the air around us cannot become any more electrified, one of Otis’s friends pokes a jab at the irate hunter’s pride. We pause, knowing that the only manner in which the woodsmen’s subverted ego can be aptly vented is through George.
This early sequence is representative of the veteran control and concise execution which is Wendigo. As Fessenden continues to flesh out and humanize his characters, he refuses to cast rote, typecast caricatures as each and every figure becomes both empathetic yet reprehensible, making our (and the characters’) forthcoming dilemmas all the more challenging. Wisely, the ambiguous climax leaves everything to the viewer in that George’s undertow of sublimated aggression is succinctly projected via his playful, but psychologically revealing, utterance to his son, “You’re a dead man, Miles” before we watch as he symbolically undermines authority by taking a snapshot of the oblivious Sheriff, Tom Hale (Christopher Wynkoop), in a comprising, embarrassing position. This is cast alongside Otis, whom we first despise without apology before it is revealed that he is acting under the constraint of familial neglect. After introducing this exacerbating information, Fessenden then issues a heart-wrenching scenario in which George–after Kim highlights the need–earnestly attempts to subvert his inferiority complex in order to help his ailing son, who may be the victim of mental instability or merely an overactive imagination, which is prompted and compounded by boredom (he is an only child) and isolation (an urban child stuck in a remote, rural cabin). Refreshingly, even the character of Miles avoids becoming the stereotypical horror demon or vestal victim as the aforementioned possibilities are commingled with the boy’s growing awareness that he can manipulate those around him. However, the gem of the film’s characterization occurs when Tom confronts Otis as the director unnervingly depicts, with an almost brutal simplicity and ease, an interaction of wills as the power structure perpetually shifts upon a mere inflection or a subtle pause.
Yet, for all of the well-rounded, admirable wholeness of its characters, the crux of Wendigo is its theme of violence and retribution. Ingeniously, the perception and subsequent evaluation of whose violence and which party’s retribution is also left to the viewer after Fessenden introduces the motif of violence committed upon nature via its native and current inhabitants, all before offering potential justifications for such, leaving various individuals and factions culpable. After the camera reinforces its archetypical, viable subjects as it pans over the labels of children’s toys in a local drug store in the form of illustrated Indians, G-men toting guns, and settlers keeping wild animals at bay, we are thrown into interpretive conflict in that, though we abhor Otis for much of the picture, we are obligated to admit that he is living off the land while George, symbolic of the city, is a metaphorical antagonist to nature. What cannot be refuted is that the titular character admonishes unnecessary rage, which accounts for his appearance in the presence of all potentially guilty parties during the narrative. In so doing, Fessenden again denies his viewer ready answers.
From a purely technical perspective, Wendigo’s ideas and execution are equally impressive in its masterful use of cut- and freeze-frames, slow motion, POV shots, hand-held sequences, steadicam and time-lapse photography, jump cuts, and montages as the beautiful cinematography is exquisitely brought into a cohesive, aesthetically stunning whole on behalf of Fessenden’s concise editing. Not surprisingly, the gentle–yet maliciously ominous–soundtrack accentuates, but never didactically directs or implies, mood and setting throughout. The only facet of the production which one could legitimately quibble with is that a large portion of the work is grossly underlit.
From almost every conceivable angle, Larry Fessenden’s Wendigo is filmmaking at its best. Not only does the director/writer/editor posit an unrepentantly vague–yet never gratuitously convoluted–ethical conundrum, but he does so while remaining true to the genre as his hyper-empathetic characters project their fears and anxieties upon the audience. Wendigo is an example of pure art and–to most mainstream critics’ chagrin–in all places, the horror genre.
– Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
