The Wind is a film for which I had no expectations or prior knowledge. I watched it shortly after seeing another movie for which I had no expectations, but found far less interesting. I say all this because by going into the movie completely dark, and having no idea of what might happen other than the psychological horror tag attached to it, I feel that I was able to have a truly honest and genuine experience watching it. I was captivated by it. While I was watching it, I really wondered if I would ultimately enjoy the film by its end. At numerous points, The Wind could have taken a different turn and my experience could have drastically changed.

Pros

Solid acting from the small cast
Great musical score
Great cinematography
The psychological side of the horror manages to be effective without being too gimmicky

Cons

Reliant on jumping around in time to tell its story, which can be confusing to someone who isn’t following along

Plot & Thoughts

Lizzy Macklin (Caitlin Gerard) lives out in the western plains of America during the 1800’s with her husband Isaac (Ashley Zuckerman). They’re just a couple of god-fearing people, out in the middle of nowhere with only each other to keep themselves company. They have some neighbors who live within walking distance, but in the very first scene find out that a great tragedy has occurred when their neighbor Gideon (Dylan McTee) brings the recently deceased body of his wife Emma (Julia Goldani Telles) to their doorstep in the hopes that Lizzy might be able to extract Emma’s unborn baby from her womb. It’s a traumatic tragedy right off the bat that sets the mood for the rest of the film.

What follows is mostly a focus on Lizzy as a character and how she’s dealing with such a terrible event, as well as looking back at recent memories to see how such an event might have occurred in the first place. The Wind jumps around in time a great deal: going to the past, then back to the present, then to the more distant past before Emma and Gideon even moved to their area, then back to the recent past. It does so with the same sort of Christopher Nolan style of minimal fanfare and relying on the viewer to recognize when things are happening based on the various contextual clues. If you’re not fully paying attention, you might get confused on the situation. If you are paying attention, however, The Wind can be immensely rewarding.

The Wind is dense with tension, which relies heavily on the quality of the direction to and setting to build the atmosphere, and on the performances of the actors to make it all very convincing. Fortunately, all of these variables work in tandem to deliver a captivating experience. If you break down the events of the plot, not much happens in The Wind. However, if you look at how the characters act around each other, what they say (or don’t say) to each other, and how that might have an effect on Lizzy’s sanity in her lonely isolation, there’s a lot going on here.

I don’t want to say much more about The Wind because so much of why I like it requires that you see it to really understand where I’m coming from. I will, however, mention that, as I watched it, I was reminded of the first time I read The Yellow Wallpaper, a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it for similar reasons. Like The Yellow Wallpaper, The Wind is not overtly horror. It builds the tension over time and does so in a way that engages the viewer/reader. It treats the audience with a certain amount of respect and does not try to explain things. It expects you to be interested enough to follow along. It simply tells a compelling story about a traumatized character who is struggling to cope with her situation, and how her world is becoming more terrifying and hostile to her as a result.

TL;DR (Conclusion)

The Wind is an intellectual psychological horror experience that requires you to be able to follow along with the jumps in time. If you do, the experience of witnessing these characters struggle in the harsh environment of the American West during the 1800’s can be an extremely rewarding one. The Wind isn’t a scary film, but it’s an intriguing one that I recommend for anyone looking for a more cerebral slow-burn of a horror film.

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