Wind and Bone



A group of three college students and their Native American travel guide are driving through the mountains of West Virginia to meet up with another couple at a group of cabins up in the wilderness. But before they begin their arduous hike up the mountain to join their friends they pick up Sierra, a quiet but mysterious hitchhiker. Being the nice folks they are, they invite Sierra to join them on their journey. Their 20 mile trip to the cabins proves to be uneventful. But once they get there the group realizes that something is wrong. Their friends are nowhere to be found, one of them thinks she sees blood, they’re hearing unfamiliar noises out in the woods, and suddenly they’re spotting antlers pinned to nearby trees. They hope that their friends have simply moved on to their next destination before they have arrived and planned to meet up with them the next day. But when they find their tour guide’s tent trashed and his body horribly mangled the next morning, everyone quickly realizes that something is terribly wrong. The problem is, nobody has any idea of what to do about it.



Ah, another year, another Wendigo movie. This time a much more recent one that’s from 2024. Though I’ve seen quite a few articles that claim “it’s coming out 2025”. Lord knows THAT’S not confusing at all. But everything else says 2024, so that’s the date I’m sticking to. Anyways, far as I can tell, this is a strictly American production, shot primarily on-site at the Cacapon State Park in West Virginia by Lucid Images. According to the end credits the film was also partially funded via an Indiegogo campaign. But going by that website, that campaign only brought in around $2,634, which would have probably only covered the Kraft Food Services table for one day, so I’m not sure how ‘successful’ that endeavor really was. But hey! They made the movie, so they must have gotten more funds somewhere. And…uh…. You know what, I can’t actually find all that much background information on this movie. So I guess we’ll just get into talking about the film itself.



Despite the completely fair and impartial review on IMDB (in fact, currently that film’s only review on that website) that looks to be by one of the film’s directors, and who generously gave his own movie a 10 out of 10, the film is…not great. In fact, I think most horror movie watchers would find it very boring. But it’s also not the worst Wendigo movie I’ve seen either. It’s just that the movie focuses more on the supernatural connections to the Wendigo, like the oncoming chill signifying its presence, or the resulting psychosis caused by its possession of its victim, as opposed to the whole ‘insatiable hunger’ resulting in cannibalism angle. Though to be fair, that’s in there too, just to a lesser extent. And of course, because none of the characters have any idea what the hell is going on, everyone is hellishly paranoid and distrustful of each other. So the film is primarily a psychological horror film, as opposed to a gross, bloody one. Which is something I actually appreciate, because that’s a part of the Wendigo mythos that doesn’t really get touched on in the films centered around it. So it’s nice to see it used here. The problem is how that’s all implemented in the story itself.



Problem #1: The story is slow.

Now, to be fair, this isn’t something that’s necessarily a bad thing when it comes to psychological horror films. In many of those cases a ‘slow burn’ could be considered a good thing. But that’s not all that’s going on here. This is a film where the characters spend close to 40 minutes walking through the woods (and a good half of that is the ending), either to get to the cabins or trying to flee from the cabins. And I might not mind that so much, because the woods they’re in are VERY pretty, and there are some absolutely lovely scenic shots, so it’s not like you don’t have anything nice to look at while watching very little else happening. And it’s not even that other things aren’t happening during these times, because they are. It’s just that I don’t see what some of them have to do with the overall plot.

Like, having a whole scene where…Lauren, I think it was…started her period early and then needed to ask Sierra for supplies. Was that supposed to imply that Sierra was a nice person? Or maybe that she was the only one of the little group (other than the guide perhaps) who was actually prepared for their little excursion? Cause they already established that point down at the van. Or were they trying to highlight some other  point? Who knows. But it didn’t have anything to do with the Wendigo, so it just felt like a scene that was needlessly taking up time.


As was this one, even though we got some nice scenery out of it.

The only useful thing they showed in their 17 minute trip up the mountain was a soot drawing of some kind of demonic looking figure on a rock (the Wendigo, I presume) that Sierra found. But then she inexplicably doesn’t bother to show it to anyone else, despite the others coming right up next to her after she found it. Or maybe they just somehow didn’t see the weird, black drawing right in front of them. Which really doesn’t bode well for their perception skills and probably should have been a sign to me for things to come.


Looks more like a smudge, really…

So basically a good chunk of the movie involves people wandering around the woods and not acting quite right. Which brings us right into…

Problem #2: These people are DUMB

And by ‘dumb’ I mean that twofold. First, it’s made clear pretty early on that these are the type of people who have no business camping. To their credit, I guess they had a map, but they lose it along with the rest of their stuff because people keep spacing out. So they don’t know where they are. They didn’t bring their ‘basic’ emergency kit from the car because they said they “didn’t need it” (Sierra ended up grabbing a couple flairs and that was it.) They don’t even seem to know how to do basic camping things like start a fire (even though one of them was smoking the previous night. Where TF did that lighter go, Sierra?). And it’s clear they made no plans of what to do in case of an emergency. Which seems particularly asinine to me, because according to the movie those cabins they’re staying in were 20 miles from where they parked. 20 MILES! Even assuming they were fit, experienced hikers (which I very much doubt), that means that they were, at minimum, a good 8 hours away from getting any kind of help. This is just the type of negligence that causes close to 2000 people to go missing from these kinds of parks each year and probably drives all the park rangers crazy. If the Wendigo hadn’t gotten them then I’m sure their carelessness probably would have taken them out almost as quickly.



But wait! It gets worse! The poor travel guide gets taken out during their first night in the cabins (Oh, did you think our Native American Tour Guide friend would be helpful in explaining the monster, or even the plot in any way? Well, too bad for you, this ain’t that kind of movie). And not just ‘taken out’ but, like, disemboweled and dragged away from camp.


Jeebus

Except, miraculously, he’s not dead. I mean, his guts are hanging out a bit, but they seem to be intact and he’s still hanging in there (tough old bird.) So these people who, I assume, are college aged but don’t seem to be smart enough to have gone to college, proceed to do two things. First, they drag the grievously injured man back to the cabin porch (yeah, go ahead and just casually twist his already fragile spine any which way children, I’m sure it’s fine). And then instead of trying to render aid (they can’t, they have no supplies) they have a very heated debate about what to do next. Now, logically, one would think that the most sensible thing to do would be to send the fittest amongst them to try to get help while the others lock themselves in the cabin and try their best to tend to this poor guy as he lay dying.


Honestly, it seems like the least they could do for Curtis after getting mauled.

But if that’s what you thought, you would be wrong with that assumption. Because according to this film the only two options were: “We can’t leave! We don’t know what’s out there!” and “We can’t leave him here! We have to take him with us!” So unless one of them was secretly some kind of surgical genius, I guess their only options were to stay there and let him die slowly, or to gradually drag his limp body down a mountain so they could kill him faster? Seriously, WTF is wrong with you people? His guts are about 5 seconds from completely spilling from his abdomen and you honestly think you can hike the 20 MILES down the mountain and drive him to the hospital before he croaks? Gods, if I were Curtis I’d be so pissed. What an absolutely horrible way to die.


Oh, and after all that talk about ‘not leaving him alone’ they proceed to ditch him on the porch for a bit while they chat. Didn’t even bother to drag him inside to try to keep him warm (they might as well have, at that point). Nice kids.

Well, jokes on me, cause they went with option two and decided to carry this poor, dying schlub down a mountain. With no map and no earthly idea of where they’re going. They then do this same thing again (yes, again) at the end of the film, just with someone else. (Our Native friend is long gone by this point. His body just straight up disappears. I think the Wendigo took pity on him and committed a mercy killing or something, but I don’t know.)

Point is, both times this occurs, the exact same thing happens: they lose someone. And not even the person that they were carrying. Someone just straight-up wanders off both times and nobody ends up noticing for several minutes. And both times this happens it’s after someone stops and turns around to talk to the others. So both times they stop to take a break to casually chit-chat for a bit before one of them finally realizes “Uh, oh shit, are we missing someone?”

Please also note that this is happening during the day and that the woods they are in could in no way be considered ‘dense’. In fact, it’s pretty open as far as woods go. So I can only assume that these guys are actively trying to not pay attention to their surroundings, even though they are, both times, presumably running for their lives. It is both infuriating and mind boggling to watch (especially when it happens for the second time). But again, these people have proven themselves to be dumb, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.



There are other, smaller issues I have with the movie as well. The editing can often be disorienting. Sometimes because the hallucinations will come on sporadically, so you’re not sure what the hell is going on or how you got there. But there are also some moments of unnecessary choppiness, like when Sierra is looking at that soot drawing and I guess she was about to fall, but the one guy reached out to catch her and whoosh whoosh suddenly they’re on the ground, and I’m not sure why Sierra was at risk of falling anyway, because the area around her looked flat to begin with, so I’m not sure what the hell she was tripping over and….uh, yeah. I’m just very confused by all that. And there are similar instances to that that happen later in the film, so it’s not just a one off.

And I’m also a little confused about certain story beats, such as why at times they seem to be trying so hard to connect Sierra’s past to the appearance of the Wendigo when they’ve already made it clear with that drawing that the Wendigo was already on the mountain before she ever got there. Or were they trying to imply that she was the Wendigo? I’m not sure. But either way I don’t think it works very well and it’s a bit confusing.



So, in short, Wind and Bone still isn’t the worst example I’ve seen, but I am still sadly on the hunt for a more faithful Wendigo movie. I do still like the idea behind this one, and it has some good acting and atmosphere. But the story is confusing, the pacing kinda stinks at times, and they’re still using the deer skull to represent the monster. So the film has its share of issues. But I guess if you’re looking for a new angle on the Wendigo theme, you could give this film a shot.

Wind and Bone is available on a variety of streaming services.

Wind and Bone is also available on DVD and Bluray.

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