By Geno McGahee
“The wind whispers Wendigo.” – The Guardian
I got a three pack of films from TROMA which included IGOR & THE LUNATICS, THE NIGHTMARE NEVER ENDS and WENDIGO, although it’s listed on the box as “FROSTBITER.” I am a huge fan of THE NIGHTMARE NEVER ENDS and would have purchased that film alone for the asking price of 15 bucks or whatever it was I paid for this DVD. So, I get two bonus films and I love monsters in the woods…so WENDIGO was a must see.
The Guardian (Mike Missler) is an incredibly old man (or at least he’s wearing a latex prosthetic to make him appear to be…although it’s not convincing at all) and he has been protecting the people from Wendigo. He once defeated him in a great battle and must now stay there on an island and make sure that nobody breaks the circle that he has made, which is a bunch of human skulls on sticks outside his cabin. When Gary (Ron Asheton) shows up with his hunting buddy, they are confronted by the Guardian and asked to leave. Gary accidentally shoots and kills the Guardian and now Wendigo is free to kill again.
A new guardian is selected in Sandy (Lori Baker) and she elects to go to the island to fulfill her destiny. Unfortunately, her plane runs into some trouble as the pilot, Duke (John Mietelka), gets beheaded by some winged monster that attacks the plane. It crash lands and she now meets up with Gary and a bunch of hunters on a hunting trip that are staying at a small cabin. They initially doubted Gary’s story about a Wendigo, but when they come face to face with a demon and a monster that jumps out of a chili pot, they are forced to buy into it. This leads to a big showdown between Sandy and the Wendigo and a new guardian arising and taking her role on.
The film relies on Claymation for a lot of the fighting scenes and the monsters are a mix of Claymation and puppetry, which was the way that many horror films had to go in the day. With no CGI, they had to figure a way to make their monsters come to life and as unrealistic as it may be by today’s standards, it was acceptable at this point. I still find some charm in it. We also see the usage of a lot of miniatures and this is another case of it looking fake, but it’s acceptable and not so fake that the audience loses interest. The audience loses interest well before any miniatures or monsters show their faces with WENDIGO.
This is a film that tried way too hard to be funny and self-aware. Gary was a good character, but his continual overacting and looks at the camera were a big distraction. The bigger problem was the meaningless dialogue that proved to be mere filler. At one point, Leo (Devlin Burton) tells a story about a cat that he had run over, but it turns out to be a joke with a bad punch line that lasted five minutes. Then everyone laughed for another two minutes. Much of the dialogue in this movie is just to take up time.
We have a hot woman show up topless that turns into a demon that looks remarkably like the demons in the EVIL DEAD, and that is probably the neatest part of the movie, but it loses it when they start putting jokes in that just aren’t funny. EVIL DEAD 2 has a huge following because the humor worked. This film attempts to do the same thing but it’s just not there…even if they hang an EVIL DEAD 2 poster. They still didn’t capture the magic.
This film is so heavily inspired by EVIL DEAD 1 and 2, but there just isn’t much to it. There is a lot of filler, bad dialogue, unrealistic reactions, and little to no character development. You really don’t know anything about the characters in this movie and you don’t care. What’s sad is that this film had a lot of things going for it that could have made it memorable and fun. It had some great make up and monsters and a cool location, but none of that mattered in the end. This film was incredibly difficult to get through.
WENDIGO (AKA – FROSTBITER) is not good. I really wanted to like this. It had the great look of the SOV horror movies of that time, but it tried too hard to be funny and too hard to wink at the camera. There was no focus on the story or the script and the filler was obnoxious. I am so disappointed. I love the idea of a Wendigo, but I’ll have to look elsewhere. This film did not do the creature justice and won’t even resonate with die hard EVIL DEAD fans. WENDIGO is just a bad film.
Rating: 2.5/10
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