EIFF 2019 Review: The Wind – “Wonderfully creepy and spooky and unsettling”

Directed by Emma Tammi
Starring Caitlin Gerard, Julia Goldani Telles, Ashley Zukerman, Dylan McTee

I usually always manage to take in a late-night horror screening at the Edinburgh International Film Festival as part of my movie fest mix. This year’s viewing was a very unusual and frankly rather superbly creepy and atmospheric Indy film by Emma Tammi which mixes elements of the Horror and the Western with domestic drama, using a small cast (really only four main and one supporting actor) and a compelling, powerful contrast between the enclosed (tiny frontier cabins) and the vastly open spaces of the great prairie in 1800s America.

The first few moments through the viewer off-balance – there is practically no dialogue for the first few scenes, just a view of two men pacing up and down nervously outside the rough, Frontier wooden cabin while the eternal wind howls and blows over the huge, open spaces of the empty prairies (Laura Ingells Wilder this is not!). My first thought was that perhaps the women were inside the cabin, the men waiting outside as the womenfolk tended to a birth, perhaps? And this guess proved correct, but not the way I expected -after several tense moments the door opens and Lizzy Macklin (Caitlin Gerard) stands on the porch, blood smearing her apron, a small bundle in her arms.

Still no dialogue. Instead of the “you have a daughter or son” moment Lizzy just stands there, the men staring at her, at the child in her arms. A child that isn’t making any noises, none of the screaming and crying that accompanies our arrival onto this planet. It is only as the film progresses that, through numerous flashbacks, we will start to understand what just happened, and what lead towards this moment.

Lizzy Macklin and her husband Isaac (Ashley Zukerman) have had their small homestead out on the Plains for several years, all alone since previous neighbours left some time back. It’s a hard life of physical toil and almost constant isolation until another young couple moves in to fix up the cabin and farm half a mile from their home, Emma Harper (Julia Goldani Telles) and her husband Gideon (Dylan McTee). Neither of them seems mentally or physically prepared for the hardships of Frontier-era life – Gideon isn’t very handy (unlike Isaac), something his young wife Emma points out to Lizzy and Isaac, right in front of Gideon.

You’d think after years of such isolation Lizzy and Isaac would be happy to have another pair of souls near them, but despite showing neighbourly charity – helping the new couple fix up the old cabin, giving them a start on ploughing to get their crops in the ground – you can feel an awkward tension, especially between the women. At first, it seems as if this is because Emma is simply not cut out for this hard life on the Plains, despite any help they give her, but there is also, perhaps a feeling of sexual jealousy, that Lizzy suspects Emma may harbour feelings for her husband, the rugged frontiersman.

There’s more to it than this interpersonal possible rivalry though – Emma starts to talk about seeing something, dark shapes, hearing voices at night. It’s just that constant wind that sweeps those huge, open spaces, Lizzy tells her, it can drive people a bit crazy, make them think they can hear something. But Emma seems to keep getting worse, even when she falls pregnant, the pregnancy that leads to the disturbing tragedy in the opening scenes of the film – is the isolation, the rough, hard life and those vast, empty spaces damaging her fragile psyche?

But then we also have scenes where Lizzy thinks she hears something, sees dark shapes. She’s pursued by wolves in one scene, one even forcing its head right through the door, snarling like a devil, till she shoots right through the wooden panels. When she ventures out they are gone, but the claw marks on the outside of the door, those marks go up as high as a person, not a four-legged wolf would reach… As Isaac has to ride several days to the nearest town she is on her own, and at night she hears things, sees movement outside her windows even though she knows there isn’t another soul in the valley.

Imagine being in this vast wilderness, the only person there, and then, in the dark of night, hearing a knock on the door. Imagine fearfully opening it, gun in hand to find… nothing. But later another knock. Or looking out into the black night of the empty valley and observing lanterns flickering into life in what used to be your neighbour’s home half a mile away, even though you know they are long gone and there isn’t another human being around for dozens of miles. It’s a simple device but damned effective at raising the spooky factor.

The Wind is wonderfully creepy and spooky and unsettling – so much is suggested, and it mostly happens around the two women, who both, coincidentally, share the same penny dreadful booklet, The Demons of the Prairies, and neither of their husbands see these things happen when they are around. Is it all in their heads, is it a form of “female hysteria” as 19th-century doctors used to (mis)diagnose? Or is it real and only prowls around the women, at night, when they are alone? The film very much revolves around the two women, the men almost secondary to events.

Tammi crafts so much tension and outright fear from suggestion and inference, small glimpses, and a really clever use of the soundscape, which here is really essential in crafting that creeping atmosphere of unease and dread, right from that word-free, disturbing opening. This is a very unusual, highly effective slice of period American Western Gothic and supernatural (or is it???) terror, with a rich aural soundscape and inventive visuals, and a brooding sense of unease that grows throughout the film and the flashbacks into something that frequently spooked even this seasoned old horror hound. Highly recommended.