A plains-woman faces the harshness and isolation of the untamed land in the Western frontier of the late 1800s.
Western horror is definitely a genre of film that is rarely tapped into. The Wind is Little House on the Prairie meets The Witch, but the execution and technical direction of the film will likely leave the viewer underwhelmed.
From a visual perspective, The Wind is gorgeous, thanks to some impressive cinematography. Exterior shots are often taken as wide as possible, utilising the scenery to the fullest whilst emphasizing the isolation that the characters are somewhat bound by. Isolated, and living off of the bare minimum, the majority of many shots are full of sky, as opposed to props and sets. The isolation is compounded with the interior shots that are much tighter often obscuring the layout, but constantly surrounded by solid wood, the framing manages to create a strong sense of claustrophobia. What there is in the way of set design, costuming, and props are well done, and certainly draws you into this nineteenth-century frontier home, whether it be the handmade furniture or the double-barrel rifles.
There are two things that hamper the effectiveness of this horror; the pacing and the non-linear narrative. This is a laboriously slow film, that languishes in its ambiguous lack of direction. The ambiguity combined with a non-linear timeline and a general lack of events does mean The Wind feels longer than its 86-minute runtime, something that is exacerbated by an inconsistent build-up of tension throughout the film.
The inconsistencies in tension comes almost exclusively from the non-linear timeline. The narrative has a linear past timeline that is frequently interrupted by flashforwards to moments of supernatural activity. While not ultimately incoherent, the flash-forwards are not in chronological order, nor are they specifically separated in any fashion from the past timeline, which can lead to the viewers having no idea where in the film they are in a chronological sense without having to stop and assess who is involved in the scene, and the level of emotional distress that our protagonist is in. It is an issue that can be worked around but is disruptive enough that there is no lead into the supernatural events to build tension and suspense, and the time taken to determine the place in the timeline ends up preventing the audience from fully immersing themselves in the story being told. The one thing that the non-linear aspect does do is make the direction of the film less predictable, but is overwhelmingly distracting to the story.
Caitlin Gerard was a great choice as our main protagonist Elizabeth 'Lizzy' Macklin. Her performance is one of the standout aspects of the film, and as mentioned earlier, is one of the elements that make it easier to determine how far along in the chronology we are. She handles herself with confidence in many a belief-shattering event, while fully capable of building, cooking, cleaning, and shooting.
Rather than being a horror with western elements, The Wind is more of a western film with horror elements. Thanks to the ambiguity in the narrative and the non-linear timeline, the audience is left with the difficult decision of deciding whether our protagonist is truly fighting off demons, or whether the full-blown isolation has led her down a path of mental instability, driven stir-crazy from geographic confinement.
The idiosyncratic structure prevented The Wind from being a genre-defining film. The cinematography and location created a persuasive atmosphere that the narrative was unable to take advantage of, making The Wind a regrettably forgettable horror.