onsdag 18 december 2013

Wendigo (1978)


One of my all time favorite short stories is Algernon Blackwoods marvelous Wendigo, telling the chilling story of a hunting expedition that has a pretty nasty encounter with a demon from native american legend. I've known for a long time that there was a low budget movie based on it but never got around to watching it. And now that I have I almost wish I hadn't.

This movie is dull. D U L L. We follow a group of rich people traveling into the wilderness along with a frecnh canadian called DeFago (who has THE worst french accent ever. The rest of the world should apologize to Canada for this travesty) for some hunting and relaxation. They walk around, talk a lot about a supposed native american treasure but nothing happens until basically the last ten minutes when the Wendigo starts tearing people apart after setting them on fire which is actually a pretty nifty effect in all its cheapness. And that effect is just about the only fun thing about Wendigo. It happens twice and lasts for about two seconds total screen time. The rest of the movie is awful acting and waves upon waves of mindnumbing boredom. The Wendigo itself is a handpuppet straight out of the muppetshow that we are only shown glimpses of, though enough to shake your head at and mock it.

Has the movie anything going for it? Anything to make you go "well, they did actually do that pretty well"? The answer is NO. Wendigo is just a big bore. To spare you for the pain, here goes:

Everybody gets killed by the handpuppet except for Billy, the native american. You don't need to thank me. And as a bonus you get another look at the Wendigo during the credits to ensure that you see how silly it looks.

Now go read the short story instead. It is a classic. The movie doesn't really deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence.

Trivia: In one scene one of the characters can be seen reading a novelization of a movie called Savage water from the same director. I've heard that it is supposed to suck equally much ass as this one. I suppose I need to see it now.

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