Just watched Jake Robinson's found footage movie The Wendigo. Right off the hop I'm inclined to like this movie because I'm a fan of found footage movies, and with it's 68 minute runtime it's exactly what I'm looking for in an a low budget indie film.
The opening 10 minutes are the livestream format as seen in the recent Shudder hit, Deadstream. The "live" comments during the stream are both hilarious and realistic. Jake used actual Twitch streamers to do the comments and the results are pure authenticity and comedy gold. I'll have to watch those 10 minutes again just to read all the comments.
The rest of the movie is found footage mockumentary format which I'm also a fan of. It's a slow burn, not usually my thing because it's hard to pull of successfully, but Jake manages to do it. The lean runtime helps, there is no fat on this movie, it moves at a brisk pace and it's never boring. Once the action does start, it's frantic and believable. Jamie and Clint Apple did a great job on the SFX makeup.
The movie is well acted, a very solid cast, no weak links. Shoutout to Rudy Ledbetter and Shawn Thompson on their reaction videos, and I thought Matthias Margraves and Tyler Gene both did outstanding jobs. But again, I hesitate to single anybody out because they all did an amazing job. The characters, mostly insufferable youtube streamers, are portrayed very believably. You will not like these characters. Unlikable characters in horror movies are my personal favorite because it's more satisfying when they die.
An overall solid effort that you should check out when it's released if you're a fan of the found footage genre.