I had been waiting for this movie since like April of 2019. I read the short story and am a huge GDT fan so I was hyped.
I understand what they were trying to do with the movie and I think they accomplished everything they set out to do but it just wasn't for me in the end. I thought the score was brilliant, some of the shots were great and the design of the Wendigo was amazing buuuut;
For such a cool fucking monster you see the thing for 30 seconds at the end.
I understand it's supposed to be a metaphor for her and Lucas overcoming their trauma, but that thing killed like 6 people and a school teacher with a sharp stick is gonna take it out lickety split like that?
I don't wanna be this guy, but if the Wendigo is a traditional Indigenous fairytale/monster then why was the only Indigenous actor in the movie used as an exposition dump so white folks could learn about the beast and save the day (I hate being that guy but come on, Graham Greene is a fucking legend and they did him dirty in that movie.)
Also, I felt like it could have been even shorter. They treated us (the audience) like we were morons and OVER explained Julia's traumatic upbringing. We went back to that convenience store to watch her stare at that liqour bottle like, three fuckin' times.
There was no need to have GDT's name attached to the feature at all. With half the budget they could have made the same movie. The CGI felt out of place despite my love of the monster, because it seemed disjointed to the almost artistic, atmospheric piece they were trying to make.
I will say, WHEN the movie was unnerving, scary and creepy, it definitely fucking got me.
6/10 I think Scott Cooper should watch some of David Bruckner's stuff to get pointers on how to do this type of thing. The Ritual and No One Gets Out Alive were a much better foray into this style of horror film (and Antlers most likely suffered due to COVID pushback as horror audiences would have been more hungry after Rituals for this type of thing).
What the fuck do I know, I'm just a standup comedian.