Wendigo (2002)
The latest from cult director Larry Fessenden (Habit) concerns a family (mother, father, young son) on vacation in upstate New York who runs afoul of a violence-prone hunter. What unfolds is not only a powerfully suggestive horror film but also a brilliant and haunting examination of one American family. It's a fairly happy family, too; there are problems simmering beneath the surface, true, but we are never in doubt about the love these three share. Our sympathy with the family is crucial to the film's effectiveness -- it's important that we view them as worthy human beings and not the sacrifical sacks of meat that populate so many horror films. Thus, when Fessenden throws a unexpected event at us, it connects with the force of a rabbit punch to the skull. (His direction of this event is particularly inspired; up to this point, he's maintained an air of unease and menace that begs to be released -- but when the time for release comes, he hits it so quickly that we have to discover what exactly has happened in the same after-the-fact manner that Erik Per Sullivan does.) Shortly thereafter is where the film's supernatural elements arrive at the forefront, and this is apparently where the film has lost a lot of people, due mainly to the obvious fakeness of the titular character. I, however, was past quibbles -- there was no way Wendigo was going to lose its grip on me, short of dragging out Frosty the Snowman to play the supernatural beast. (In case you were unaware, a wendigo is a Native American spirit with an unquenchable hunger, usually for human flesh. It recently showed up in a different form in the underrated Ravenous.) The performances are all outstanding, with special mention going to Sullivan as Miles, the timid and frightened soul at the heart of the story. And the cinematography is spectacularly good. Ultimately, Fessenden has made probably the most poetic and mournful horror film I've seen in a very long while. As much as I admire Habit, this is a hundred times better. If there's a better horror film this year, then it will have been an extremely satisfying year for genre freaks.
Grade: A-
The latest from cult director Larry Fessenden (Habit) concerns a family (mother, father, young son) on vacation in upstate New York who runs afoul of a violence-prone hunter. What unfolds is not only a powerfully suggestive horror film but also a brilliant and haunting examination of one American family. It's a fairly happy family, too; there are problems simmering beneath the surface, true, but we are never in doubt about the love these three share. Our sympathy with the family is crucial to the film's effectiveness -- it's important that we view them as worthy human beings and not the sacrifical sacks of meat that populate so many horror films. Thus, when Fessenden throws a unexpected event at us, it connects with the force of a rabbit punch to the skull. (His direction of this event is particularly inspired; up to this point, he's maintained an air of unease and menace that begs to be released -- but when the time for release comes, he hits it so quickly that we have to discover what exactly has happened in the same after-the-fact manner that Erik Per Sullivan does.) Shortly thereafter is where the film's supernatural elements arrive at the forefront, and this is apparently where the film has lost a lot of people, due mainly to the obvious fakeness of the titular character. I, however, was past quibbles -- there was no way Wendigo was going to lose its grip on me, short of dragging out Frosty the Snowman to play the supernatural beast. (In case you were unaware, a wendigo is a Native American spirit with an unquenchable hunger, usually for human flesh. It recently showed up in a different form in the underrated Ravenous.) The performances are all outstanding, with special mention going to Sullivan as Miles, the timid and frightened soul at the heart of the story. And the cinematography is spectacularly good. Ultimately, Fessenden has made probably the most poetic and mournful horror film I've seen in a very long while. As much as I admire Habit, this is a hundred times better. If there's a better horror film this year, then it will have been an extremely satisfying year for genre freaks.
Grade: A-
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