Natalie

It's undeniably gauche for a bunch of white people to use the wendigo myth to talk about the fundamentally self-destructive nature of America, but this movie has a lot going for it despite that. It has a strangely compelling mood: it goes out of its way to be charming when it's not actively depicting horror, with a cast of characters that could just as easily have made for a kind of 1840s M*A*S*H knockoff. Michael Nyman's score does tremendous work underlining this aspect. The credits track in particular keeps bouncing around in my head, a buzzy synthesizer riff that evinces a calm and cautious optimism that's totally at odds with the actual end of the film. Not a great film but better than it has any right to be.