I believe this movie needs to be watched through the eyes of the boy, Miles.
He has traveled with his Mom and Dad to a strange old house out in nowhere land, and has to sleep in a large room by himself. To me, the real horror in this film is the woods, and the darkness. The boy has been told about the legend, or folklore of the Wendigo. It roams the woods and fields looking for its next victim. In his bed the boy looks through old books which show pictures of Indian cultures which practice the rituals of wearing animal heads and masks. Everything around him is strange and creepy. I specifically remember long ago riding in the back seat of the family car on cold, dark winter nights, just like Miles was doing. Just me back there and Mom and Dad up front. Driving down a country road at dark, especially just as darkness has fallen, I could see the trees and woods as we passed by them, but just a short distance into the wood line, it turned completely black. The cold and snow added to the chill that would come over me. My boy brain could imagine that someone, or some thing, was in there watching us pass. If our car broke down here, we've had it. We would all be torn to pieces by whatever is out there, watching us. It may even be a large black wolf, and I imagined I could see only two yellow eyes, just into the trees. Cars did not have automatic devices back then, and I would slowly reach over to be sure the door was locked. I could not wait to get home and into my warm cozy bed in my own safe room. I personally really liked the extremely moody photography in this film and the snowy, dark, late evening and night scenes. To me, that is the real scare and even now gives me chills to think about. The Wendigo itself is almost a side story to the isolation, darkness and the unknown of the woods at night. If nothing else, I like this film because it introduced me to, or reminded me of, a wonderful old poem by Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". I printed that poem and hung it by a window in my house where I look out onto the woods out back.
Review of Wendigo
