Frostbiter: Wrath of the Wendigo (1996)

Yep, its another Evil Dead rip-off, but this one is full of Troma Goodness. The movie opens with a very old man writing an account of his battle with the Wendigo, an ancient evil spirit, that took place over one hundred years before the start of the movie. He managed to defeat the creature and trap in inside a mystical circle created with the skulls of the monster's previous victims. The old man warns that, should the circle be broken, the evil would return even stronger than before and plunge the world into darkness...

Well, I think we see where this is going. Two drunk hunters stumble on the old man's cabin and destroy one of the skulls. On top of all that, they manage to accidentally kill the old man and release the Wendigo. One of the men is eaten alive and the other escapes and attempts to warn the other hunters who are on the island. Now, as a raging winter storm blocks all help from the mainland, these hunters and a young woman who has been chosen to be the new guardian must find a way to close the circle again.

What follows is your typical "people trapped in a cabin who are tormented by zombies and evil spirits" type story that is definitely Troma's answer to Evil Dead. What keeps this movie from being dismissed as just a cheap attempt to cash in on Sam Raimi's work is that Frostbiter doesn't take itself too seriously.

The cheap and over the top aspects of Troma's movies are what make them so great. Seeing the zipper running up the monster's back is a lot of the fun of B movies and Frostbiter has plenty of zippers showing. When some windows are supposed to explode, you can actually see the spark from the squib and when a woman starts to clean a cut on her face, the black eye she has disappears along with blood. These things, however, don't take away from the fun of the movie and will actually make you chuckle good naturedly.

This knows what it is and it goes with the flow. This makes for a fun and entertaining semi-parody that most will enjoy. Troma fans will definitely dig and some die hard Evil Dead devotees will probably hate it, but if you just set back and turn your brain off for a bit, I'm sure you'll have a good time. One word of warning, once you see the scene where the monster comes out of the pot of chili and bites the guys hand off, you'll be singing that song playing in the background for days. "Bad chili....no crackers...". Oh now I've got myself singing it again.....make it stop!