MovieChat Forums > Until Dawn (2015) Discussion > The Wendigos

The Wendigos

posted 9 years ago by XanMan101
4 replies | jump to latest

How much control are the Wendigos actually supposed to have over their actions? It is implied that they're pretty much savages who are just out to kill and eat the people they killed. They cut the victims heads off with a slash of their hands.

But, are they actually a lot more intelligent? I mean, they go to the effort of hanging the dead bodies on hooks and when Josh is about to be killed by the HannahWendigo, he sees her tattoo, says her name and she drags him off instead (in the alternative, she just squeezes his head until it explodes).

Also, it's been stated that the wendigo who is targeting the group is actually Hannah, so she must be aware of what she's doing, and not just killing people randomly?

So, are they just brutal killers or do they actually have some control?

[–] pirouette028 9 years ago

My take is that they are mostly cannabilistic monsters driven by instinct to kill with very littel control over their actions, but since they were originally human, they retain a bit of their memories and human tendencies. I guess I would place them somewhere in between zombies and vampires: more cognitive than a zombie but less self control than a vampire (well, modern vampires anyway).

I think it is fairly clear that Hannah remembers the group. She kills a couple of them in ways that are indicative of her getting revenge for their prank or mouthing off at her. She rips Jessica's jaw off after she mouths off about having sex with Mike, she gouges Emily's eyes out like she was getting her back for watching her humiliation, and she kills Sam (her best friend) a tad more humanely than the rest.

I think the biggest clue that she retained some sliver of humanity is that she never outright attacked Mike. She stalked him a few time and could have attacked him (chapters 3, 4 and 10), but she either backed off or went after someone else instead. It makes sense because she was "in love" with him.

[–] delgadillojose 9 years ago

Hannah also throws Jessica's cell phone through the cabin window in the scene where Mike and Jessica are together. Everyone else was at the main house so Hannah is the only one that could've done that. If the wendigos were purely mindless hunters, there's no way that that could've happened.

[–] Hajikm_26 9 years ago

Plus she later gets the bodies and hangs them up like pigs. And her killing method is very different to how the Stranger originally describes it as. She pretty much always goes for the head. Josh is the only one she recognises if he recognises her first. And at the end she saves Sam in a poetic sort of way by grabbing the Wendigo that was about to catch her. Not because she intended to but because of the moment.

Love breeds sacrifice, which breeds hatred. Then you can know pain - Pain

[–] MBloom_25 9 years ago

I had the same thoughts when playing the game. Hannah definitely wasn't completely mindless. I think their humanity deteriorates the longer they are wendigos. Hannah had only been one for a year, so that could be why she still had her memories of the group. There were a lot of missed opportunities in not exploring that aspect of Hannah in more depth (other than the Josh incident).