The suggestive WENDIGO is the final installment in a trilogy of horror films from director Larry Fessenden (HABIT, NO TELLING). Beginning on a dark, snowy road in rural Connecticut, WENDIGO immediately slams into gear as a family of New York City visitors run over a deer and drive into a ditch. As George (Jake Weber), his wife Kim (Patricia Clarkson), and son Miles (Erik Per Sullivan) wait for a tow truck to rescue them, they cross paths with an unhinged hunter named Otis (John Speredakos) who finishes off the deer and begins terrorizing the family. Things take an unusual turn, though, after Miles meets a spectral Native American elder (Lloyd E. Oxendine) and learns the secrets of the hungering Wendigo spirit.
Balancing jittery camera work with placid landscapes, Fessenden creates a foreboding mood for WENDIGO from the opening scene and never lets up. The movie shifts between the firm character grounding of the family, the edgy terror of Otis, and the elusive spirit-world of the beastly Wendigo in a way that seems to draw clear lines for the audience, only to redraw them with hairpin plot-turns and unsettling visuals.
Theatrical Release Date: February 15, 2002
DVD Features:
Region 1
Keep Case
Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.78
Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1 - English
Dolby Surround 2.0 - English
Additional Release Material:
Deleted Scenes
Audio Commentary: Larry Fessenden - Director
Featurette: SEARCHING FOR WENDIGO
Director of Photography
Terry Stacey: director of photography, SPRING FORWARD
Music
Michelle DiBucci: Music, WENDIGO (2001)
Review 1:
"...The core emotions are strong and solid, which serves WENDIGO well as it moves into the supernatural realm....For those in search of something different, WENDIGO is a genuinely bone-chilling tale..."
Source: New York Times
p.E32 02/15/2002
Review 2:
"...Fessenden is a filmmaker with an uncanny gift for the creation of unsettling moods....This is a properly spooky film about the power of spirits to influence us whether we believe in them or not..."
Source: Los Angeles Times
p.C21 03/01/2002
Review 3:
"...The actors have an unforced, natural quality that looks easy but is hard to do..."
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
p.30 02/22/2002