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46%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #9,320
...out of 20,698 movies
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A duo of gun happy redneck hunters stupidly break a sacred circle in a hunting spree, which releases the deadly wendigo. The wendigo kills many of the hunters gruesomely, leaving the chosen woman and a gun toting idiot to destroy the deadly beast.
--IMDb
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The Guardian begins the movie with the origins of the Wendigo. It's told that the circle of skeleton heads around his house is to keep the portal closed from the Wendigo. Gary (Ron Asheton) and Dave are out in the woods hunting when they come across the Guardian's home. Gary being bent on hunting where ever he pleases, he shoots one of the skeleton heads and then the Guardian. While trying to save him, he melts down and begins attacking the two hunters. When they finally get rid of him, the Wendigo kills Dave as Gary makes an escape. The Guardian's spirit is shown awaking a young girl by the name of Sandy. Telling her that she is now the chosen one and must close the circle. Without question, she goes to Duke's Charter Flights and pays him to take her to the island that the circle is on.
A group of five hunters are introduced. Peter, Nick, Jerry, Tony, and Leo. Once everyone gets familiar with the group of hunters, Sandy and Duke are shown in the plane flying to the island. They get attacked by the first sentinel of the Wendigo's. It's a sort of flying beast breaks into the plane and bites off Duke's head, making the plane crash, leaving Sandy battered and bruised. Back to the cabin, Gary forces his way in while the group is sleeping. Barricading the doors and explaining to the men about the Wendigo. As Leo is cooking chili, he tells Gary that no one believes him as the second sentinel makes its appearance. A monster in chili form bites off Leo's hand. He flips out and runs outside as Gary pours out the chili.
Just when they think it's safe, Jerry bursts into flames. Once they put out the flames, he's so burnt that's there little chance of him surviving. Though they keep him in the cabin. Shortly after, a woman comes searching for help. Once she's let in, she turns into a vicious mutant witch. Not getting the upper hand on anyone, she gets defeated by a pitchfork to the neck. The men come up with a plan for three men to go out and meet Duke in the morning when he makes his daily rounds, the other two will wait with Jerry. When morning arrives, the three men to go are Gary, Tony and Leo. They find the crashed plane and Sandy. Tony tries to see if the radio still works on the plane as the other two go to help Sandy.
When Tony doesn't catch up, Gary goes to find him as Leo brings Sandy back to the cabin. When he returns to the cabin, the group is attacked by the returning chili monster, along with two more of them. They kill the chili monsters off with a little help from Sandy. A new plan is established, Peter is going to walk across the ice (the lake is frozen due to coldness) and the other two men would stay with Sandy. Later on, Nick and Leo hear gunshots and go investigate. They get attacked by the Wendigo. Leaving Sandy by herself. She eventually gets company when Gary returns from looking for Tony. Who he found dead with his neck crushed. The Wendigo begins attacking the house, breaking in and killing Gary. Peter then comes back from his failed journey to help Sandy fix the circle and finish off the Wendigo.
Several people call this film a huge Evil Dead rip off and meaning in it a bad way. Any real Evil Dead fan would know that it's not a rip off, though it does share a lot of the same attributes. Like when the Guardian melts down, it has claymation similar to the melting down of Cheryl in her final scene of Evil Dead. Or how the hunters use shotguns to kill off their enemies. Though they are hunters, I wouldn't think of them using much else. Leo's hand gets ripped off and has to bandage it up. And finally, the film mostly takes place in a cabin out in the woods. All of the above fits in with the story perfectly. The film makers could have not even seen Evil Dead, yet still pulled this movie off with the same exact outcome.
The monsters that attack everyone were very well put together. The Wendigo was claymation and looked very evil. As did the mutant witch. She actually looked the best out of all the sentinels. Most of the hunters that died came back from the dead as zombies. Their make-up was also well put together. Gary was crawling on the ground when he came back to life, with his guts hanging out and him trying to give his frozen heart to Sandy. Peter had to put a stop to that with his shotgun. Speaking of which, there was never anything shown coming out of the shotguns. It would show the shooter, then a blast would sound showing the victim explode. Sandy also got me when she was washing off the blood from the huge scars on her face. When she's done, the scars vanish. Her face was in perfect shape.
All in all, the movie was put together very nicely. The plot was loosly taken from the folklore tale of the Wendigo (obviously). If you're not aware of any Wendigo tales, just imagine another tale of Big Foot that has better stories backing it. As the story just put together a lot of different old tales from old Wendigo sightings and what not. The film has it's fair share of blood, violence, killings, monsters, zombies, and even a pair of breasts. Anyone interested in old folklore tales or the first Evil Dead movie should at least give this one watch. The was Chaney's first time directing a movie, and seeings how he hasn't made another once since, it looks to be his last. A superb job for a first time director. I hope he makes a return to the chair sometime in the near future.
Final Conclusion: 8/10
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