"The Wendigo" (2023)

by Mike Imboden

Normally here at “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict”, both Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. However, here and there they will be taking the reins in a solo outing. For this installment, it’s Mike with a solo review of the found-footage horror, The Wendigo, from Cryptid Pictures, Terror Films, and Jake Robinson.

Synopsis

After a social media star disappears in the woods of North Carolina, his friends are set to figure out what happened to him. Ignoring the legend of the cursed land was only their first mistake.

The Good

Mike: With a very small budget, Robinson needed to make a little go a long way and in that respect he did an admirable job. The design of the titular creature looks pretty cool and is quite effective within the confines of a hand-held camera that isn’t being held steadily and is constantly shifting in and out of focus.

The folklore of the Wendigo is intriguing and provides some fertile ground for storytelling and The Wendigo offers up a pretty decent story that - to the best of my knowledge and recollection - hits all of the high points surrounding the beast and even slips in an interesting addition involving Pangea and Nordic mythology.

The Bad

Mike: The biggest complaint about found footage movies is that they’re boring as hell until the end and, unfortunately, this film reinforces that stereotype. We’re saddled with a group of characters that have no personalities and therefore elicit no concern for the safety from the viewer, their monumental stupidity and lack of realistic reactions to what is happening. Without anything happening that has any bearing on the actual story, this all plays out feeling like a challenge that one of the film’s characters, Logan, would put himself through. Then there’s the matter of the actual dialogue which should feel natural, but here feels too scripted in places and in others is just cringe-worthy.

More succinctly, the writing is pretty weak - and when you need to rely on that to keep your viewers engaged through a lot of slow moments it’s pretty important that it not be.

The Verdict

Mike: Normally I’m a fan of the found footage style of filmmaking (stop calling it a genre!), and while I didn’t totally dislike The Wendigo, I was less than impressed. With such a rich history, the legend of the Wendigo deserves to be right up there with Bigfoot and while the film does try hard, this just isn’t the winner I had hoped it would be.

The Wendigo from Cryptid Pictures and Terror Films, is available digitally as of August 4th, 2023

The Wendigo