Frostbiter: Wrath of the Wendigo



AKA: Wendigo

An old man sits in a cabin lit by candlelight and recounts his link to the ancient creature known as the Wendigo. The man is the creature’s current guardian, a task he imposed upon himself years ago when he himself fought and defeated the beast. Now, years later, he guards its corpse, which he has enshrined within a protective magic circle, in order to keep the monster at bay. And so he guards the circle, because whomever should break it would unleash the power of the monster upon an unsuspecting world.

Enter Numbnuts 1 and Numbnuts 2, aka Larry and Dave, a pair of drunken redneck wannabes who decided to go “hunting” one afternoon and stumble upon the guardian’s cabin. Larry, apparently not taking kindly to all the “keep out” signs, shoots the guardian and breaks the circle, inadvertently releasing the Wendigo from its cage.


Oops

Meanwhile a group of other hunters, who are almost as equally drunk, are playing poker and minding their own damn business, when a freaked out Larry shows up and tries to warn them about the monster on the loose. An alert they initially ignore, until their chili becomes sentient and tries to kill them.

Meanwhile meanwhile, the spirit of the now dead guardian apparently doesn’t like the odds that all these tipsy dinguses with guns have in regards to stopping the ancient evil. So he appears before Sandy, a random young woman he seemingly picked out of a hat and we’re never given any background information on, and tells her that she’s now the new guardian of the Wendigo and is the chosen one who has to “complete the circle”. Most people would probably chalk all that weirdness up to a nightmare or a bad batch of asparagus they ate or something. But Sandy dutifully follows the creepy ghost’s instructions and heads off towards the cabin to try to complete her supernatural task. But the Wendigo and its minions aren’t going to make it easy on her, so she’s going to have to rely on the help of a handful of VERY confused hunters if she’s going to have any hope of stopping the ancient evil.


Help me, Sandy, you’re my only hope…. Because it’s winter in Michigan and you’re the only sober person I could find within a 100 mile radius that I can reasonably rely on to stop this thing…. Sorry.

I decided I’d have another go at trying to find a decent cryptid movie this month, since I realized I already had a couple of them already on my watch-list. And before you wonder, no, they’re not all related to the Wendigo. I just figured I’d start with that one this month just to get it out of the way. And though I’d never heard of this one, I was kinda hopeful when I started it up, as I am ever hopeful when I start all my movies… But then the Troma jingle started and I lowered my expectations accordingly (though I think it was only distributed by them, not made by them). And I was right to because, once again, this is yet another movie that does not give an accurate portrayal of a Wendigo. In fact, this one may be one of the most “off” yet. So my search for a more faithful Wendigo movie continues. But (!) I still ended up actually kinda liking this one, so it wasn’t a total wash either.



The movie is very clearly a low-budget homage to the Evil Dead series. They even have the poster hung up on one of the cabin walls, just like Evil Dead had part of the The Hills Have Eyes poster hung up in one scene. So it’s very obvious and they’re not trying to hide anything. But that also means that this really isn’t a movie centered around the “Wendigo”. Because while the Wendigo design itself is rather pop culture accurate (kinda), this version of the Wendigo also has “sentinels” that it can command to cause further mayhem. And since the “sentinels” are basically the equivalent of the demons seen in the Evil Dead films, THOSE are the things that we actually see the most of, not the Wendigo itself, though it is mentioned frequently throughout the film. So you have a rural cabin, a lot of death and dismemberment, a lot of scenes with weird puppet creatures attacking people, or people inexplicably turning into monsters and attacking people, or corpses jumping up and attacking people, and screaming and maniacal laughing…. You get the idea. A lot of it is going to feel very familiar if you’ve seen the Bruce Campbell films. They even recreated some shots like the “woods” attacking and characters being flung back into walls, just in case there was ever any doubt to what their inspiration was.




ARGH!

The biggest difference with their methodology, is that it seems as though they couldn’t decide which one of the characters should be the equivalent of Bruce Campbell’s character, so just about everyone is Ash and is screaming and hacking and slashing and dropping the occasional quip. Except for Sandy, who seems to be the only one taking the situation seriously, despite being pulled out of her nice, comfy bed and thrust into all this nonsense against her will. Kinda like that ONE competent person at the office who has to do everyone’s job because all the other coworkers are ignoring phone calls, drinking coffee, or desperately trying to figure out how to leave work early. She gets to the airport in the middle of the night. Manages to (crash) land the plane after being attacked during a blizzard. Yet still manages to limp her ass in the direction of the cabin and then continues onto the cabin, despite all the hunters being “nuh uh, hell no, we leavin’” when she asks for help. Chika is awfully determined for someone who was given a task by an unknown ghost one night during the middle of a snowstorm.


I wonder if she thinks it was worth it?

And you know, the filmmakers actually do a really good job with everything, all things considered. Yeah, it’s low-budget, but it’s low-budget in the same way that the original Evil Dead was pretty low-budget. So parts of it look kinda cheap, but other parts look really good, and you can tell that they put a lot of effort into everything. Meaning you’ve got some really nice moments of goofy gore and some gnarly looking puppets, mixed in with some well-made miniature work and hand painted backgrounds. But then on the lower end you’ve got a couple goofy looking puppets and some questionable prosthetics. But then again, you’ve also got some very nice looking prosthetics, too. So it’s a bit of a mixed bag, but nothing that feels wholly out of place due to the film’s lack of seriousness.












Gee, perhaps if he’d used whatever lotion he’d been using on the rest of his body maybe his face would have been as baby smooth as his hand.



They even went out of their way to create some original goofy songs to go along with some scenes. I think my favorite was the one called “Just Chili”, which was played as the “Chili Monster” was attacking everybody. That’s goofy film-making dedication right there. Please give part of it a listen. Apologies in advance for not being able to separate the song from all the confused screaming.

So, overall I was pleasantly surprised by Frostbiter. It’s not the type of movie I was expecting, and most of it is pretty dumb. But it’s dumb in a fun “we knew exactly what we were doing” sort of way. Plus it has a lot of heart, so I’m more willing to forgive most of its faults. It’s not perfect of course, as some of the effects and the acting could be better. And it has some genuinely crappy looking posters. But I was still very much entertained by most of it. So if you’re looking to scratch that Evil Dead itch and need something new to watch, this is a pretty solid option. But if you’re looking for something non comedy related, it might be best to steer clear.

Frostbiter is available on a variety of streaming services.

Frostbiter is also available on DVD and Bluray, from our friends over at Vinegar Syndrome.

Helpful Links: