The Big Picture

Consumed
is a wilderness creature feature of a different flavor, so that’s nice.
It doesn’t care to hide its hand, which is a relief at points, but also makes the film easily readable.
The main cast is solid, but the material leaves us wanting more.

We’ve all been, or maybe still are, consumed by something—an obsession, a runaway passion, or toxic imprisonment. That’s what Mitchell Altieri’s horror film Consumed explores, quite simply. David Calbert pens a script about an inability to move on from traumas or inevitabilities, wrapped within the breezy familiarity of a stuck-in-nature monster flick. “Consumed” references both the physical and metaphorical, but is that enough to sustain a barebones thriller between lovers, a gruff hunter, and the puff of smoke that haunts them there woods?

Consumed (2024) A married couple’s celebratory camping trip takes a dark turn when they become trapped between a revenge-seeking madman and a skin-stealing monster in the wilderness. As they struggle to survive, they must confront their deepest fears to escape the nightmare. Release Date August 16, 2024 Director Mitchell Altieri Cast Courtney Halverson , Mark Famiglietti , Devon Sawa Runtime 89 Minutes Writers David Calbert Studio(s) Brainstorm Media Expand

What Is ‘Consumed’ About?

Jay (Mark Famiglietti) and Beth (Courtney Halverson) are partners celebrating Beth’s first cancer-free year by hiking and camping, reliving their outdoorsy honeymoon phase. Beth’s weaker than she was after intensive treatments but insists they push forward, traversing rocky uphills to lock another core memory. Despite minor arguments, Beth puts on a happy face during the day — but while Jay’s asleep, she’s distracted by nightmares of foot-long claws ripping open a chest wound where doctors removed cancerous cells. Things get worse when Jay and Beth leave their tent in pitch blackness, only to return to shredded polyester and a slimy substance covering their belongings. The lovers sprint toward safety, however many miles away, until Jay steps into a bear trap, and that’s when they meet Quinn, Devon Sawa’s reclusive trapper.

Consumption comprises the thematic weight of Consumed, every character emotionally paralyzed by something. Beth cannot escape fears of her cancer’s return. Jay’s stuck on rebooting their romance to blissful normalcy. Quinn won’t rest until their supernatural foe eats his bullets, because it brutally murdered his daughter Addison. Calbert’s writing doesn’t deal in subtlety, which becomes even more evident as Quinn informs Beth their pursuer seems to favor sickly targets, especially those close to death. Not to say every movie needs to be as twisty-turny as The Usual Suspects, but Altieri’s inability to sustain mysterious tension is detrimental to this thinly linear narrative. Even the film’s reveal of its big baddie, a Wendigo, feels less spectacular.

Performances stabilize the experience, especially when Quinn enters the fold. Famiglietti and Halverson portray ordinary symptoms of a couple tested by adversity, especially as Jay’s champagne-sweet attempts to brighten Beth’s mood are met with annoyance, but they’re engaging enough leads. Then Sawa presents himself, draped in pelts like a proper lives-in-a-bunker hermit, and we’re met with the question of Quinn’s intentions. Altieri urges his actors to volley dialogue back and forth as Quinn doesn’t seem too concerned with Jay’s snapped fibula, but he’s keener on aiding Beth. In these moments, when Quinn fills in gaping blanks about the creature sniffing their scent, Consumed lures us back. Sawa’s dressed-down Kraven the Hunter is in the performer’s wheelhouse, and Beth’s apprehension is palpable around her armed maybe-savior. Alas, the film returns to Expectations Boulevard once Quinn’s motivations are revealed. The rest is just as traceable as the opening act.

‘Consumed’ Is a Lackluster Wendigo Horror
Image via Phil Flores

As for the film’s horror elements, Altieri’s interpretation of Wendigo lore is backloaded. Skinwalker elements are gorily shown when Beth stumbles upon the Wendigo’s hideout and sees flesh masks draped on rocks or drying on lines à la The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. As for the Wendigo itself, it’s mostly a gaseous storm cloud with glowing streaks, caught somewhere between a Gastly Pokémon and digital blurs that float across the screen. There are tangible effects saved for a final showdown, though even then they are blurred and hidden, reminding of the clunky and unfunctional Rawhead Rex monstrosity with less visibility. It’d have taken immaculate prosthetics and creature designs to atone for the film’s prior pixelated sins, which are absent. Although I’ll award points for the lanky Wendigo fingers digging into Beth’s bleeding surgery cavity — that’s a nasty piece of SFX.

Consumed is an underwhelming Wendigo tale that is always a few inches from “getting there,” but never takes the leap. Altieri and Calbert confront life’s cruelty through a genre lens, ending somewhere hopeful as Beth battles against an entity that could end her pain with a snap. Still, it’s a generic blend of human drama and otherworldly horrors. Consumed never makes the most of its Wendigo punctuations, whether hampered by budgetary limits or to-the-point scripting that overstays its welcome at nearly 90 minutes. Something like Bryan Bertino’s The Monster exemplifies how to stretch by-the-books themes into a chilling feature-length duration. Altieri tries his best, yet without anything special regarding effects or memorably horrific accents, his genre remix on existential dread loses the thrill of the chase.

REVIEW Consumed (2024) Consumed is another mediocre blend of monsters as metaphors and traumas that linger, mainly because its horror-forward elements leave enough to be desired.ProsA few spots of flesh-stretched grossness do the trick.Sawa, Famiglietti, and Halverson deliver solid performances.Wendigos rule?more Wendigo horror movies, please. ConsThe smoke-cloud effect is lacking.The story doesn?t have enough juice for its duration.We?re always one step ahead of what?s happening on-screen.

Consumed is now available to stream on VOD in the U.S.

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