6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
George is a high-strung professional photographer who is starting to unravel from the stress of his work with a Manhattan advertising agency. Needing some time away from the city, Jake and his family head to upstate New York to take in the winter sights, though the drive up is hardly relaxing for any of them. George accidentally hits and severely injures a deer that ran onto the icy road; after George stops to inspect the damage, he's confronted by an angry local named Otis who flies into a rage, telling George that he and his fellow hunters had been tracking the deer for some time. An argument breaks out, which leaves George feeling deeply shaken. When George and Kim arrive at their cabin, they discover that it's next door to Otis' property, and they soon find that a dark and intimidating presence seems to have taken over the cottage.
Starring: Patricia Clarkson, Jake Weber, Erik Per Sullivan, John Speredakos, Christopher WynkoopHorror | 100% |
Mystery | 10% |
Thriller | 2% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Note: This title is currently available as part of The Larry Fessenden Collection.
You might think Larry Fessenden would be better known as a director, given the fact that entries in his filmography bear such iconic titles
as
Jaws, A Face in the Crowd and Chinatown
. Of course Steven Spielberg, Elia Kazan and Roman Polanski might prefer to have someone pointing out the fact that Fessenden’s films
with those titles are not the “famous” ones, so to speak, so there’s that. Fessenden has carved an interesting niche for himself as an indie
horror meister,
while also frequently appearing as an actor in not only his own films, but those by such iconic names as Martin Scorsese (Bringing Out the Dead) and Neil Jordan (The Brave One). Fessenden might seem like a somewhat odd subject for a
“career
retrospective” of sorts like the new four disc set from Scream Factory which assembles Fessenden’s films from a fifteen year span (give or
take)
bridging the 1990s to the 2000s. Fessenden may exploit an unabashedly (and unapologetically) lo-fi ambience in many of his films, but he’s
also an (at times at least) unusually intelligent writer of horror. While each of these films has its own hurdles to overcome (as even
Fessenden
admits in his charmingly self deprecating commentaries), this set also provides an interesting example of an independent filmmaker growing
and
becoming more and more technically competent as his career progresses. There's at least some thematic consistency in play between these
quite disparate films, including a recurrence of the traditional horror staple that Mother Nature doesn't take kindly to humans not respecting
her enough.
Wendigo is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of IFC Midnight and Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is generally speaking one of the clearer presentations in The Larry Fessenden Collection, one that offers above average levels of detail and fine detail, while also supporting a varied and interesting palette. While grain is generally natural looking, there are a couple of early moments that are pretty noisy looking (low light shots of the family car proceeding into the countryside), and throughout the presentation, there's a tendency for slight splotches to crop up during dimmer sequences. But the many bright sequences pop quite well, with good to very good precision and in some exterior footage some commendable depth of field.
Wendigo's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks offers a nice bed for the often appealing and ethnically tinged score by Michelle DeBucci, along with some inventive sound effects that tend to create unease in an almost subliminal manner at times. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly and is well prioritized. There is also a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track included on this release as an option.
Wendigo has a number of fascinating elements, and it's one of the more consistently creepy efforts included in The Larry Fessenden Collection. Fessenden tends to undercut himself when push comes to shove, but the film benefits from some well done performances and a palpably disturbing mood. Technical merits are generally strong, the supplementary package is commendable, and Wendigo comes Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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