Written by Toby Rodwell, Edited by Alejandra Benavides and Rafaelia Socratous

This is my first short film, and it is written, edited, narrated, filmed and everything in between by me, several months ago. It began as a collage of footage I had filmed over the course of my first year of university and some from a botched short film I did prior to coming here, however, I decided to edit it into something more selective that also featured a poem that I had recently written. It was an excuse for me to try out experimenting with sound design and voice work with my new microphone, and I like to think it paid off – though the sound is better experienced through headphones. 

I was drawn to this project by my interest in merging old cryptid folklore from different societies into a contemporary western urban environment and seeing what type of horror it gives me (this is the premise of the urban-horror anthology book I am currently writing). This poem is about the ‘Wechuge‘, which is like a ‘Wendigo‘; a supernatural entity coined in current culture as a ‘Skin-crawler‘, that possesses corrupted or isolated people and turns them into cannibals. They are visualised as tall, perpetually starving, with jagged bones (though that can be interpreted as a metaphorical presence). The myths of the Wechuge originate in the tribes of Athabaskan Native Americans. They differ from Wendigos with firstly their particularly cold climate, but more crucially, with regards to having ancient, wise brains.  

The film is up on Letterboxd (give honest feedback!): https://letterboxd.com/_azagoth_/film/the-wechuge-that-came-to-us/

I also tried submitting it to the Argo Student Film Festival; it met all the criteria, and I successfully uploaded everything it needed, but they took it down sometime later (for reasons unknown to me). A more polished version of the film I submitted exists; however, I thought it best to share the one already on YouTube.