The Wendigo tackles the turbulent world of social media influencers. When an influencer vanishes after being attacked on stream, his friends and acquaintances decide to look for him out of concern…for good content. It was directed by Jake Robinson. It was written by Jake Robinson and James S. Brown.

The acting is ok. I feel the same about most of the performances as I do the characters; a little more subtlety would have helped. They act with a lot of gusto, and I get the point. Influencers can be vapid and egotistical. In general, I think horror elements are more effective when you don’t actively want people to die unless you’re going the power fantasy route. Tonally, The Wendigo dances between being serious and humorous. I think it would have benefited from going harder into one area or the other. If they went harder into the comedy, the lack of subtlety for many of the characters and their performances wouldn’t have mattered to me as much. If they went harder into horror, maybe some characters would be less cartoonish. There aren’t many instances of growth for these characters, but that is common in the found footage genre since they are capturing a mere moment in time. The character relationships are pretty good. The dialogue is decent. It has moments that stand out as better than others.

The pacing felt average, but The Wendigo is well under feature length. It’s barely over an hour long. There were moments that felt dry, but that’s the result of the basic found footage formula. Well after the introduction but before the climax things tend to get stale. The humor here worked for me more than it didn’t. I laughed out loud a few times. When it delved further into the horror elements I didn’t feel the suspense or thrills I might have hoped for, but I wasn’t bored either. I was always down to experience what was in store for me. The lack of shivers on my part wasn’t due to the atmosphere, which was fairly well done. The editing and the after effects are the strongest elements here. Whether for humor or for horror, they left a very positive impression. The practical effects aren’t realistic, but they are a good effort. The blood is a perfect example. It had brighter blood, darker blood, and even oxidation, but there was a little too much candy apple red in the mix for me to find some things convincing. A brick red may have been a bit more effective in those areas. It’s worth mentioning because I feel the same way about the blood as I do the whole experience. I believe the men and women here have the technical skills, and I believe they have a mind for horror, but I think the balance is little off sometimes.

The minds behind The Wendigo have a keen understanding of social media and the culture around it. If one does not share such an understanding he or she will probably not enjoy this as much as others. I’ve used the phrase found footage quite a bit, but I suspect The Wendigo‘s heart is more in line with creepypasta than something like Rec or Paranormal Activity. It made me think of Marble Hornets and No Through Road. If you are a person who indulges in creepypasta, ARGs (Alternate Reality Games), and analog horror you may enjoy this as well.