THE WENDIGO – found footage review

I have to admit, I really appreciate when a found footage film tackles a blisteringly NOW moment and works with it. It isn’t always successful but when done well they serve as a sort of guidepost for where our culture was at that moment and I appreiate it.

Even with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT you had the dawning of the citizen documentarian as handicams and more affordable technology allowed people to cover stories without a newsroom’s support. Now you have people livestreaming and taking to their social media to tell stories and show things happening live. Found footage is best when it comments on something topical and makes us consider that moment in culture.

We see this a lot in modern found footage but it’s rare that it works. It’s rare that it gets past the top most layer.

THE WENDIGO begins with us following the exploits of online stuntster Logan, who goes into potentially dangerous places and films it for pay per view streaming fans. After he disappears while searching for the legendary Wendigo, his friends decide to film themselves searching for him, not realizing that he may not have been faking his encounter with the creature.

The double layer of a streamer disappearing and then his ‘friends’ searching for him to create their own content is really, really clever. It is done very well and while it’s funny, it’s funny because it’s too real. It’s too poignant. The search for Logan gets lost beneath the layers of wanna-be influencers desperate to cash-in on his disappearance. We don’t quite know if they think he’s faking it or not, or if they really care. What they care about is content.

And that’s where we’re at as a society – content.

It was bad enough when people just watched terrible things happen without acting.

Then they began filming it beause that was what we did, we filmed things in case we wanted to show someon else.

Now we film first and give a damn later.

It’s all about content.

With WENDIGO we have the performative caring for the camera and it’s handled very well. You can believe that these are people desperate for some sort of content to make themselves famous. The movie is done with handheld cameras in the woods – ah, the woods! – and it all feels as ‘real’ as these movies can. The Logan material in the beginning is played more broadly but it still feels too darn true to some of the social media influencers that are out there. The thin line between online reality and true reality blur so no one knows where the truth is.

It’s only when the dark comes adn the reality that not only could Logan be in trouble but that now the people who had gone to search for him, to co-opt his fame could be in trouble does the facade fall and we see who everyone really is.

This is a slight film, coming in at only 68 minutes, but none of it feels like filler. There’s talking and ‘table setting’ but it all feels as if it’s part of the story they’re trying to tell. It doesn’t feel bloated and frankly, I’d rather it be a little shorter than overly long to pad it out to ninety minutes.

As the climax plays out the films falters some, though they have still done an admirable job with the movie. There isn’t much shaky-cam, there’s no external sound that shouldn’t be there. This is presented AS footage that was found.

It sticks to the rules.

The big problem is they just lose their grip on the story a little and they needed a little more time and a little more lore to explain things. There is an aspect of the film that gets a little EVIL DEAD and I think fans might really dig on that. We just, as I say, needed a little more.

I give them huge props for making a really entertaining movie and sticking to the rules of the subgenre. It doesn’t entirely work by the time the credits roll but it was a good effort and interesting take on things and well worth a look for what it says about influencer culture.

3.50 out of 5

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