Therapist Kim (Patricia Clarkson), her husband commercial photographer George (Jake Weber) and their son Miles (Erik Per Sullivan) make a weekend trip to the (snowy and cold part of the) country. On the way to their home for the weekend, they run over a deer and meet the local Deliverance extras who were hunting it, among them Otis (John Speredakos), whose unprovoked hostility and anger disturb the family even more than the dead animal.
When they finally arrive at their destination, they find a bullet hole in one of the building's walls. Not troubling at all. Miles doesn't sleep well the following night. His sleep is disturbed by dreams of violence and a dread that something terrible will happen.
The next day, the family makes a few purchases in the nearest town. While nobody is looking, a Native American (Lloyd Oxendine) tells Miles (and us) the myth of the Wendigo, an angry spirit dominated by uncontrollable hunger and violent anger. When the boy agrees to the stranger's question if he believes in ghosts, the man gives him a figurine representing the Wendigo and disappears. Later happenings will make quite clear that he is a spirit himself, if not the Wendigo.
Later that day, George takes Miles sledding, only to fall from the sled, shot.
Ah, Larry Fessenden, how I respect you. Ah, Larry Fessenden, how irritating your films can be. In a world where most horror films don't even try to be more than the same old, same old, only with a little more gore and increasingly less talented actors, Fessenden represents a more independent mentality. Sure, you will find clichés like The Native American Spirit and The Evil Hick, but Fessenden doesn't tell cliché stories.
The visuals and the storytelling of Wendigo owe more to the traditions of independent drama than to usual horror fare, the interest of the film lies primarily in the family and their relationships with each other. The supernatural is secondary and mostly used as a metaphor. But this is exactly where the film's problems start. Fessenden doesn't seem to trust his viewers to grasp the meaning of his (not very complicated) metaphors nor the (quite obvious) themes of his movie. So he is spelling them out as loudly and directly as possible, nearly ruining the second third of Wendigo by the incessant repetition of things I had already understood the first time. Do we really need to hear parts of the Elder's monologue about the Wendigo three times, especially when three very capable actors make this completely unnecessary?
Which leads us directly to the film's second problem. Fessenden seems to trust his actors as little as he does his audience and seems to actively undermine their work, again by spelling out what their acting makes clear enough. The worst offender is the moment when the dying George tries to tell his family indirectly how much he loves them. Intercut by Fessenden with the smiling face of a baby, just in case somebody has a very bad sense of hearing, I suppose.
So, why do I still recommend the film? Because, even as heavily flawed as Wendigo is, it's a film that shows deep commitment by the people making it, a sense of urgency I can't help but respect. And Fessenden can be a very good director when he is not trying to clobber us with heavy-handedness. Here is someone with a clear and concentrated sense of style who can and does achieve moments of great creepiness as well as moments of great tenderness.
Add this to the very good acting and a surprisingly ambiguous ending (no clear morals in this film, to my surprise) and you may not have a film that gels as good as I would like, but at least something well worth watching.
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