This wild, crazy, silly little flick starts with an introduction of a lone trapper who calls himself the Guardian, played by some dude with schlocky old makeup that looks like dried mud. He tells us the story with a raspy Robert Englund-ish voiceover where he once upon a time came into a battle with none other than the mythical snow beast Wendigo at Manitou Island in Michigan. And this island is no joke as it has a snowy mountain shaped like a human skull. C o o l.
After he defeated the beast, he dedicated the rest of his life to protecting the world from its resurrection, like a Sentinel, if you will. And by doing so, he marks the beast’s burial ground with a circle of skulls of the victims to create a spiritual shield. Clever. But, of course, if the circle is ever broken, he’ll be reborn and more powerful than ever. So there’s no time to retire.
The Guardian is now a hundred years old and lives as a hermit in his small cabin to guard the sacred burial ground. Too bad that the old fool never thought of having a loaded shotgun, just in case. Because this is America, after all, where there’s not only Wendigos and other fairytale monsters to be highly aware of. And the ones to come here and ruin his life’s work and screw everything up, is none other than two trigger-happy hunters in the holy name of the Second Amendment. One of them, the most trigger-happy one, is played by Ron Asheton, the guitarist and co-founder of the legendary rock band The Stooges. And speaking of: the whole soundtrack is blasted with rock music from obscure artists. Because I can’t proudly say that I’ve ever heard of Elvis Hitler. No songs from Iggy Pop here, though. Anyway: They shoot one of the skulls that breaks the circle before shooting the old man.
His final words are The circle … has been … broken. The wind … whispers. Wendigo… God bless, thank for your service and rest in peace. It’s full nonstop B-movie showtime from here on as the Guardian’s body decomposes in some classic stop-motion fashion (just like we saw in the first Evil Dead from 1984) before his possessed skeleton attacks the hunters. They cut the skeleton’s head of with an axe, but then comes a big hand and grabs one of the hunters who ends up decapitated. Back on the mainland the young woman Sandy gets her beauty sleep interrupted when the ghost of the Guardian gives her a visit to pass her the torch. She gets on a plane to the island to close the circle, and her job gets more complicated when a group of drunk guys having a party in a cabin ends up conjuring the wendigo from a ghoulish shapeshifter with a wig to his full glory form.
We also have a chili stew that turns into a monster. And I should be careful with my words from here on as I drink chili beer as I’m writing this …
Frostbiter: The Wrath of the Wendigo was made sometime in the late 1980s after a group of friends got a complete life-changer after watching Evil Dead II and wanted to become filmmakers themselves. And who wouldn’t, after watching that film for the first time, whether you’re 14 or an old fart. The film collected dust for some years after Troma Entertainment finally came to the rescue and gave it a VHS distribution in 1995. In Japan, the film was released under the title Shiryo no harawata (which is simply translated as Evil Dead) to cash-in on Sam Raimi’s trilogy, in some good old shameless Italian style. The true Japanese counterpart to Evil Dead, however, was released around the same time with the colorful title Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell.
The love and homage to Evil Dead really shines through where they do their best to imitate the distinct loose camerawork and chaotic atmosphere. The Troma vibe is also all over the place, though, so don’t expect any creep factor. Instead we have full on dumb, silly comedy performed by a handful of enthusiastic amateur actors who obviously had a blast. The dialogues are even dumber. Fun stuff, in other words, to spend with tacos and beer on a Friday night. There’s also a lot of ambitions in the effects’ apartment with some cute miniature sets, matte paintings, prosthetic effects, and of course the Wendigo monster itself, that could be straight from a Ray Harryhausen film. Some really impressive work here, for sure, where every penny of the shoe-string budget was wisely spent. The audio mixing has some serious issues, though, as the music drowns out the dialogues. So thanks for the subtitles.
The film was recently released on Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome and could be conjured on, yes, you guessed it – Tubi.
Director: Tom Chaney
Writers: Tom Chaney, Rick Cioffi, Steve Quick
Country & year: USA, 1995
Actors: Ron Asheton, Lori Baker, Patrick Butler, Devlin Burton, Tom Franks, Alan Madlane, John Bussard
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116371/
A middle school teacher, Julia, becomes interested in the life and well-being of one of her students. He is harboring a dark secret, one that will lead to terrifying encounters with a legendary ancestral creature.
