The Wind (Movie Review)

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

PLOT: In the late 1800s, Lizzy Macklin (Caitlin Gerard) becomes tormented by what she perceives to be a prairie demon. Is Lizzy simply losing her mind following years of isolation and recent tragedy?

REVIEW: Meritorious horror-westerns are always an appreciated rare-breed of subgenre, and with THE WIND (WATCH IT HERE) – a frostily stirring bite of severe psychological fright – the distinction is made all the more impressive by the fact it comes from first-time feature writer Teresa Sutherland (shorts THE ORPHAN, THE WINTER) and equally novice narrative director Emma Tami (docs FAIR CHASE, ELECTION DAY). An austere and deliberately paced slow-roast, sure to repel the ADD-riddled, THE WIND sways past a skimpily structured story and one-note plot in favor of setting a palpably ominous mood, one that blooms, rankles, compounds, and ultimately unnerves. Indeed, it’s precisely the inertia and inactivity of what does and doesn’t happen to the lead character – a fiercely commanding Caitlin Gerard – that mainly accounts for Lizzy’s psychotic postpartum uncoiling. With a virulently vexing score and sharply shot western iconography, THE WIND carries as far as the ambiguity of its core mystery will allow, the resolution of which I honestly would have liked to have seen gone a bit further. Alas, for a minor mood piece impeccably made, THE WIND moves a mighty malevolent aura!

An arresting opener sees the camera slowly pull back to reveal a young woman in a white dress exit a humble abode on the American frontier, holding a dead baby against a giant bloodstain on her belly. We slowly learn through flashbacks that, German émigré Lizzy Macklin, has suffered a miscarriage of her baby son. She tries to press on with her dutiful husband Isaac (Ashley Zukerman), living in total isolation on a duty prairie farm. We sense her uneasy, mirthless life isn’t easy, and the postpartum farrago of emotions – pain, anguish, exhaustion, shame, guilt, even jealously we’ll soon see – has begun to take an immense toll on her psyche. She’s weathered…by the weather. Literally and figuratively speaking, as Lizzy is increasingly tormented by ululating gusts of wind that swirl around her house when winter approaches. Animals seem to die near the house, only to reanimate as if nothing happened. Lizzy is convinced she’s being harassed by a demon, but Isaac won’t hear any of it. A somewhat nearby couple comes to visit, and Lizzy soon shows signs of envy over the woman, Emma Harper (Julia Goldani Telles), being nine months pregnant. Emma and her beau Gideon Harper (Dylan McTee) are new to the area and haven’t much recourse, so Isaac and Lizzy agree to help plow their field and plant their crops. But when they come to assist the following day, Emma is bewitched is some sort of fever-trance, manically repeating that something is out to get her. But are Lizzy and Emma really experiencing the same demonic threat?

In addition to the crisp cinematography by DP Lyn Moncrief (I’M JUST F*CKING WITH YOU), and the complimentarily ambient score by Ben Lovett (THE SIGNAL, THE RITUAL), the strength of THE WIND lies in the dreadful mood it establishes from the outset, and how the cryptic nature of Lizzy’s unreliable mindset continues to heighten that very mood as the film progresses. It would seem that the film is less an exercise in twisty storytelling than it is a complex character study of a woman’s fractured psyche. But how then can we reconcile supernatural happenings that other characters witness, such as Emma, or later, when Isaac also witness the reanimation of living creature. The tightrope of ambiguity director Tammi skillfully tiptoes upon here keeps is what mainly keeps us on edge throughout the movie. THE WIND’s potency is the air of mystery itself. Of course, none of it would work without the sweeping work of Gerard as Lizzy, who’s tasked to not only plumb cold emotional depths, but she must also properly titrate her performance back and forth between seeming internally insane or externally possessed, depending on which way Tammi wants to manipulate us. Gerard dominates nearly every frame of the film and is the undoubted pillar of why the movie’s mystery works.

Alas, when it finally comes time for Tammi to show her cards, it almost seems like she’d rather fold than really show us her hand. I wish the movie had committed a little more fervently toward the mystery in the end – one way or the other – rather than bemuse with more ambiguity, but all told, I think there’s a clear enough answer to satisfy most willing to invest a brisk 83 minutes. That’s the other issue. The movie can only seem to sustain itself for so long before losing its edge around the 60-minute mark, which again, is that very WIND of frightful uncertainty. Also, by the time the horror materializes in more conventional fashion, the movie loses steam and begins to convince us far less. Whether it’s the ghastly apparitions or demonic shadows that arrive in the third act, they scare us less because mainly we’ve seen many of them before, yes, but also because they takes us out of the real terror-dome – Lizzy’s ungraspable spiraling mind. That’s where the real intrigue rests. While these are indeed slight transgressions, surely excusable for first-time feature writer and director, they sort of ensure the movie remains a minor one, unable to transcend ultimate greatness on such a small scale. Sutherland and Tammi aren’t far away though. THE WIND’s wily crafted and wickedly drafted!