Winterbeast

Director - Christopher Thies 

Starring - Tim R. Morgan, Mike Magri, and Charles Majka (The Polka King)

Release Date - 1992

Genre - Horror

Tagline - "It must be seen to be believed..."
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection)

Rating (out of 5):

     When Vinegar Syndrome announced the release of their Home Grown Horrors box set I was very excited for it.  Not only did it have a late 80s horror film I had never seen before but it also includes the 1992 horror film Winterbeast which is a notorious film among genre fans.  Most of the people that know my taste in horror has recommended this one to me for some time but I've never came across a copy or forgot about it when I set out to order movies.  With the inclusion of it in this set meant I was finally able to check it out.  

     The film follows a forest ranger who is investigating a large number of missing people.  The local lodge owner chalks it up to people not sticking to the trails but the ranger suspects something more is at play.  While investigating they uncover remains and a skeleton posed in some sort of ritualistic fashion making the ranger suspect that it has something to do with an urban legend linked to the Native Americans but the lodge owner refuses to listen putting more and more people's lives in danger until his real intentions are uncovered.

     Winterbeast is one of the oddest yet purely entertaining 90s movies I had ever seen.  The story combines so many different elements that the viewer won't know what hit them while the effects will leave you speechless.  I loved it but I'm not blind to the film's shortcomings.  I can look passed some of these things to see the fun hiding underneath.  The acting in this one is not the best.  In fact, there was times that I found myself laughing at the interactions happening on screen.  The cast is extremely stiff and some of the dialogue is so bland that it feels like they are reading their lines off screen.  While I was putting this review together I noticed that most of the cast and crew have no other credits and that would explain why.  It's funny but it's clearly not meant to be.  The story for this one is nothing we haven't seen before.  Hell, the last few months I've reviewed several other movies that used similar stories.  However, the movie has many different moving gears to create a story that is unlike anything I had seen before.  The major plot premise centers around a forest ranger warning people of an evil presence in the woods.  This is almost like the plot to Grizzly but then you add the Native American legend and you get a little bit of The Cellar (another Vin Syn release) and even Scalps to an extent.  Form there we take a turn into late night creature feature territory and that's when the movie goes bat-shit crazy and pulls the viewer in.  Honestly, you need to be on some good shit to understand this movie fully but I enjoyed it.  Finally, the film has some seriously impressive stop-motion animation that I was not expecting and not only do we get it for one creature but for several.  The make-up and practical effects all look great but the stop-motion is really what sells the film.  Overall, Winterbeast is not going to be for everyone.  However, if you are a fan of the films you would see on MST3K then I highly recommend checking this out.  Hell, this film makes this set worth the price!  I highly recommend it.