Review

This episode opens with three friends camping in the deep woods of Blackwater Ridge, Colorado. Naturally, this being horror and all, they aren’t alone and are picked off one by one by something unseen.

Sam and Dean follow the coordinates in their Father’s journal and find themselves in Lost Creek, Colorado. They join Haley and Gary who are hiking into the woods – Blackwater Ridge apparently – in search of their brother, who has gone missing on a camping trip there. Guess he would be the dude on the phone in the pre-credits introduction.

The bros soon learn that they are dealing with a Wendigo, a creature out of Native American mythology. A Wendigo is a former human who has resorted to cannibalism, which has transformed them into a creature with superhuman strength and speed, and a never-ending appetite for human flesh. Wendigos keep their meal ticket alive to feed on at their leisure, and can hibernate for years at a time.

The episode kicks off in high gear, but then largely fails to impress overall. We get a cool POV from the tree-line during the opening sequence, and a fantastic masking of the creature as it helps itself to the buffet provided by the campers. Director Nutter ensures we are aware this is a superhuman creature, but he keeps his ace card up his sleeve till late in the episode. We only get glimpses of the creature till right at the end; I can dig that concept, and Nutter knows what side of the toast his vegemite is layered on.

Unfortunately the rest of the episode singularly failed to impress this viewer, and I was at times wondering if I shouldn’t fast forward through a few scenes that really added nothing to what I didn’t know from the pilot. Guess it’s the TV format, and I’m dialing into the disc set, so twice the fun hey!

Tad of disappointment over the second average episode

It only took two episodes, but we already have references to previous outings in horror land, and the reference this time round was simply a shock scene added for a quick scare tactic early in the episode. If you have seen Carrie then you’ll know exactly what I mean here.

Clearly Nutter is going all-out for tension with the pre-credits scene, and our Scooby Gang getting stalked in the deep woods. For some reason I didn’t dig that at all to be honest, and was waiting on something to happen rather than gripping my armrests in sheer terror. The resolution was even more of a let down. We have a creature with superhuman abilities, yet it gets dispatched pretty easily as Dean goes psycho on its arse. End of the day, Nutter and writer Kripke went all safe on us, with all the major characters surviving through to the end of the credits; oops, should have dropped a spoiler in there, but no one is going to be fooled by this one.

You may have noticed that I filed this one under the werewolf tarot card when deciding what sub genre it fitted into. Ex-dude, now a man eating beastie of the night – seemed appropriate. Surprisingly, writer Kripke has the mythology down pat, and the use of fire to destroy the beast reflects Native American Indian belief that a Wendigo can only be destroyed by melting its “heart of ice”. Now how cool is that? I wasn’t aware of this stuff, so the show added to my knowledge of things that go bump in the night.

Episode 2 does hold up well on the filmmaking side of the terror aisle. Visually it’s quite stunning in places, with good use of the outdoor forest locations. There are some money shots going down, if you can dig the use of backdrops and letting the location speak for itself.

If I haven’t mentioned it already, this series is going to hold together via the interactions of the Winchester bros. Once again, this aspect was working like a Voorhees family member at a Crystal Lake Camp reunion. Dean is the wisecracking comic relief, and Sam provides the springboard for a whole slew of one-liners to bring a smile to your face. The normal cultural references, horror mythology references, and quick wit is to the fore. The dialogue remains a strong point of the series, and is perhaps the best usage since Buffy the Vampire Slayer had punters chuckling over the constant one-liner delivery.

Got to say this series is delivering my type of music, big time. Check this line-up: “Hot Blooded” Foreigner, “Down South Jukin” Lynyrd Skynyrd, and “Fly By Night” Rush. I’m in hog heaven over here. The incidental music was perhaps more noticeable in this outing, and it’s working pretty well. There’s a definite match between the orchestral movements in the dark and what I’m seeing on screen. The audio is floating my boat like a brought thing; the only thing missing is a recognizable theme tune, but guess we can’t have everything.

Guess I’ve rambled on enough in this episode guide, and I haven’t yet got around to talking about our leads. Maybe next time gang. Final word on the “Previously on Supernatural”: what’s that about? If you don’t know the Bros are searching for Dad and trying to figure out the demonic element then you haven’t been paying attention. Now I know that’s not the case; really wish they had of cut that shite from the DVD release.

Wendigo didn’t have me howling at the moon, and it’s a weaker episode than the first one. Was happy enough with events as they unfolded, but thought the makers of the episode could have done better with a pretty cool concept. Excellent use of Native American mythology however, without the requirement to dial into standard horror fare, though we’ll no doubt get there in due course. Kripke could have simply gone standard werewolf on our arses in this episode, so I was happy he was thinking outside the box and not going for simple plot lines we have all seen before. To a certain degree I was probably expecting more after the all-out shenanigans of episode 1, Pilot, so that may have effected my enjoyment of what is actually a pretty good 50 minutes of televised horror plot lines.

Supernatural clearly has its demographics mapped out and is catering to them in each episode. Chicks will love the hot leads, horror fans can groove to the references, and those over-the-top lore geeks have a treasure mine to extract mythological goodness from. They can keep this stuff coming at us, as there’s something for everyone. I’m already tagging this series as horror’s answer to the X-Files: take that, sci-fi dweebs!

I’ve been slightly harsh on this episode, but it still gets a recommendation. Not the best horror hour I’ve experienced on the small screen, but 100% better than some attempts in the past. We have our background in place that frames the series, and each episode is going to stand alone, judging from my early dial in. This one is the business, I can hardly wait to check out what more is coming my way.