Consumed
by Hope Madden
The Wendigo is a presence that has proven hard to create on film. Ravenous—Antonia Bird’s 1999 small miracle of Western horror—conjures the spirit of the beast and comes off best. In her hands, the flesh consuming monster equates to the horrors of war.
For director Michael Altieri, working from a script by David Calbert, the mythical creature is a stand-in for cancer. It’s a great conceit, honestly, and one I wish had been executed a little more successfully.
Courtney Halverson plays Beth, who heads into the deep woods with her husband, Jay (Mark Famiglietti) to celebrate one year of remission. But the two are stalked by something terrifying and eventually fall into the hands of another person (Devon Sawa)—friend or foe, they can’t quite tell—as they plot their escape from the forest.
Altieri—formerly half of the Butcher Brothers (The Hamiltons, A Beginner’s Guide to Snuff, The Violent Kind), this time directing solo—soaks much production value from his two or three locations. A clear pro with limited means, Altieri makes the most of just three performers, generating dread and analogizing well.
The performers range in skill. Genre veteran Sawa convinces as the hunter with a past and an agenda and Famiglietti fares well enough as the supportive husband, although there’s not a lot to the role.
Most of the weight of the film lands on Halverson’s shoulders and she struggles early on, the layers of her conflicted emotions never taking authentic shape. She’s on more solid ground once Beth goes full badass, but without an early emotional hook for her character and relationship with her husband, you’re less invested in their survival.
More problematic is the presentation of the beast itself. Here the budget really makes itself known. Altieri oscillates between smoky swirls of digital FX and the shadowy presence of practical FX, but the combination is far from seamless. The film would have benefitted from sticking with practical and taking a less-is-more approach to what it showed.
It doesn’t entirely sink the production, but it does slow whatever momentum Consumed builds every time the beast arrives. Given its other setbacks, that’s enough to lessen the overall satisfaction the movie offers.
