Okay, I first heard of this film with the return of Ellen Sandweiss who was in Evil Dead and despite any other cinematic features she may have been apart of, E.D. was the last I had saw her. And no, it's not that I think Ellen's actings skills are superb, it's not because she was raped by a tree (although that was dope), but it's because I find her attractive-
Okay, so movie on, I do agree with the previous reviewer on how there was/is a certain buzz about this film and so I went to my local crap-busters to see if they had a copy in stock. Luckily, they did and so I rented it and went home to see what was all the hype about.
Basically, in a nutshell, the movie is about all the crazy things that happen in the Pine Barrens of S. New Jersey. You got a retarded psychopathic family, satanists, and the Jersey Devil or more appropriate-The Jersey translucent bat.
I like abstract, atmospheric, dark ambient stuff but a film like this fails in comparison with "The Wendigo."
The things that I liked about the movie was the part of Grandma Leeds (played by Irma St. Paule) sniffing cocaine (infact, her performance throughout was rather good), the stupid hiker guy who got his throat slashed by the Jersey translucent bat, and the guy who played Sean,the retarded son (he did a good job on acting retar; oops, "special" with the drool included), and of course the appearance of Felicia Rose (Mama-Mia).
What I didn't like about the movie was noticing that something wasn't all too there with them before they found the Leeds. Ellen's character was a bit slow and out there. The only normal guy in the movie was the pops (the big Jersey Italian guy) before he got cranially reamed by a mallet, the cop who just appeared out of nowhere at the Leed's house because he had a complaint about devilworshipping kids whipping people on their front lawn, when the cop gets slashed and killed in his patrol car (which was parked down the dirt road from where the station wagon was), Ellen lifts her head from the cover later and notices the cop car but not paying attention to when the guy was getting killed (wtf), and the slow, weird motions of the characters like when Felicia's running (yes, I know it was suppose to be abstract), and the retarded, psycho looking fat heffer of a girl with gray eyes smiling all crazy, and last but not least everybody at the hospital near the end acting all unattached to the survivor.
Now, first off if I'd seen a psycho looking girl with gray eyes smiling all crazy in the woods, I'd know something's up and if I went into some old torn down shack of a house where it looked crazy and humanly impossible of living in, that would be point two.
Question 1: And did you notice that nobody has cellphones at all? Question 2: What do you think happened to the baby?
By looking at a movie within the first 3 minutes, I know if it's good or not and I like things to be realistic especially for a (it could happen type of movie) and this failed miserably for my expectations.
Of course, there's people all in the woods of the great pine barrens Satanists, hikers, other girls with car trouble, the Jersey translucent devil bat, hence Satan's playground.
One thing that I think I understand in a sub level is grandma Leeds is a witch, the Jersey translucent devil bat is her familiar/demon, and the satanist perform rituals on her lawn because that's what we just do, lol. The hints to this is because in dialog with Sean, she said that she had 13 kids who all were bad. Whatever, I like Wendigo because for me it's more grounded and it brings the darkness more to realistic level.
But don't take my word for it, what I might hate would be genius to you and vice versa.
