‘Ithaqua’ Review: Well-Made, Gruesome, and Problematic Western Horror [Beyond Fest]

Back in the day, Hammer Studios was Britain’s answer to Universal’s monster movies. They produced loads of gothic horror films, ranging from vampires to Frankenstein, zombies, mummies, and even a single werewolf picture (The Curse of the Werewolf). Now the studio is back with Casey Walker’s Ithaqua, featuring a creature never explored by Hammer…the wendigo. The result is a problematic, yet beautifully shot, nihilistic western horror feature that chills.

Set during the decline of the fur trade in Canada, we meet Cole (Luke Hemsworth). An American mercenary haunted by his past, he’s enlisted by a remote trading outpost plagued by famine to investigate the sudden disappearance of a nearby tribe. What he discovers is a monstrous hunger that transforms anyone it touches… produced by a mythical beast that can never be satisfied.

Right off the bat, Ithaqua has one glaring issue. Over the years, we’ve seen many filmmakers tackle the wendigo folklore (most of them white men). From Larry Fessenden’s Wendigo to Antlers and even Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, there are all sorts of variations of the creature of legend among Indigenous tribes. It’s difficult not to see it as appropriation, especially when all these stories star and revolve around white characters. And that’s the case with Ithaqua.

Worse? Cole is quite the choice to base Walker’s story around. We learn from his own lips that he has spent most of his life slaughtering Indigenous people. On a path of redemption, he’s now romantically involved with a native woman named Ahnung (Leenah Robinson). Her grandmother, Nokomis (Pamela Matthews), doesn’t like or trust Cole. And she has every reason not to! His past makes it almost impossible to believe that Ahnung could ignore what he’s done. And even if you buy it, it turns the whole thing into a white guilt narrative that involves a particular Indigenous character possessed by the wendigo and placed at the center as the monster.