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[Blu-ray Review] Taylor Sheridan Keeps His Streak of Success Alive with ‘Wind River’

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Few in the movie biz have had a string of recent success that can rival that of Taylor Sheridan. The actor turned writer turned director really started to hit it off when he became a regular on Veronica Mars. Since then he’s continued to work his way up and in the last two years he’s written the scripts for two critically beloved films in Sicario and Hell or High Water. With plenty of success firmly under his belt, Sheridan has returned to the director’s chair with Wind River and if this film is any indication Sheridan is going to be around for a long while.

It’s the middle of the harsh Wyoming winter and Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner), a tracker for Fish and Wildlife Service, is searching for a mountain lion responsible for killing some livestock on the Wind River Indian Reservation. While following the paw prints in the snow he comes across another set of tracks — human tracks. The tracks leads to blood and the blood trail leads him to the dead body of a young teenage girl from the rez.

While the girl’s ultimate demise a result of the brutal winter, it’s clear that someone wanted her dead. It also appears that she was the victim of sexual assault. Cory calls in the local tribal police who then call the FBI. One dead Native girl is hardly a priority for the FBI so they send in their closest agent despite the fact that she’s still a bit blue and wildly unprepared. The agent is Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) and she’s flown in from Las Vegas. She’s so ill-informed of what she’s about to face that she shows up in nothing more than a windbreaker while it’s below freezing outside.

Jane may be out of her element, but she isn’t a dummy. She convinces Cory to assist her and is determined to do whatever it takes to find the girl’s killer. The elements make the job extremely difficult but Jane is determined. Her and Cory begin poking around and within a day that get a lead. Once they follow that lead things get a little out of hand.

Wind River has a lot of what we’ve come to expect from Sheridan’s scripts. The story is mostly thin and a repeat of things we’ve seen before but that’s a tradeoff Sheridan is willing to make in order to put his characters first. And those characters are the strong point of Wind River. Cory is an expert tracker with a wonderful young son but he’s divorced and still suffering from a terrible tragedy. Renner’s performance is outstanding. If he wasn’t already established as such this movie will have firmly placed amongst today’s best actors. He’s classic Hollywood — masculine but with a softer side.

On the flipside you have Jane, a character that easily could have been very problematic. When she first arrives on the scene we’re to believe that she is unfit for the job. It’s as if she’s incapable of providing any help and just there to waste everyone’s time. That ends up not being the case at all. Yes, Jane is in an unfamiliar situation and as a result she struggles a bit but that doesn’t stop her. She perseveres against all odds.

Gil Birmingham plays Martin, the father of the deceased young lady. He doesn’t have nearly the screen time as Olsen or Renner but he maybe gives the best performance. It’s heartbreaking seeing him try and cope with something no one should ever have to cope with and at the same time he’s so uplifting. He has two scenes with Renner that are something else. Two actors in complete command of their craft, tugging at our heartstrings.

While the characters are great the script is a little up and down which is a bit ironic giving the Sheridan’s very recent success as a writer. My understanding is that Sheridan wrote this around the same time as Sicario and Hell or High Water and that this is the script that was closest to him. I think that could explain some of the script’s problems. Sometimes when a writer gets too close to their own work they’re afraid to deviate and make changes for the better. A big part of the film is about the loss of Cory’s daughter and she was best friends with the victim from the film. Cory never finds out how exactly her daughter died by the circumstances are very similar. Sadly this never pays off anywhere in the script. Given what we do learn about Cory’s daughter it feels like the two deaths should have been linked but that never happened. If the two deaths were going to be unrelated as they appear to be then I think Cory’s daughter shouldn’t have died in such a similar way. The grieving father aspect would have still worked, but could have been tweaked a tad.

Even with some of the script’s weaker points it still manages to build tension quite well throughout the film. There is a Mexican standoff that sort of comes out of nowhere to get you on the edge of your seat. It eventually leads to an explosive and violent shootout that is bound to knock you back some.

The way Native Americans are handled is a bit of a mixed bag. I think Sheridan’s heart was in the right place. He was attempting to tell a very important and real story involved Natives and the film does a good job casting Native American actors in these roles. On one hand he does succeed. Natives have been largely shoved to the side and ignored over the course of this country’s history. That’s apparent in the film with the FBI’s response to the situation. But then the film has the white savior issue. The two leads, the two heroes are both white and they’re the ones that save the day. The Natives in the film are victims or outsiders. That’s not to say the Native characters are just filler because they’re not. As I previously stated Birmingham is fantastic and his character is very powerful. The movie also has great performances from Graham Greene and Martin Sensmeier. It would have just been nice to see those characters play a larger role in actually solving the mystery.

Wind River has its flaws and Sheridan took a few missteps along the way. With a few tweaks here and there this could have been a true masterpiece. In the grand scheme of things these issues are fairly minor. Wind River is still a damn good movie and one of the year’s best. It’s winding neo-Western that evokes the Coen Brothers while having a very obvious and pleasant Silence of the Lambs influence. In my opinion this is a must-see.

Wind River is currently out on Blu-ray from Lionsgate Films. The Blu-ray features two deleted scenes and a behind-the-scenes feature.

Chris Coffel is originally from Phoenix, AZ and now resides in Portland, OR. He once scored 26 goals in a game of FIFA. He likes the Phoenix Suns, Paul Simon and 'The 'Burbs.' Oh and cats. He also likes cats.

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‘Herencia Diabólica’ – 1993’s “Mexican Child’s Play” Finally Has a Blu-ray Release [Review]

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Did you know that there is a Child’s Play-inspired film from Mexico? If you didn’t, you can thank Vinegar Syndrome’s new label Degausser Video for making 1993’s Herencia Diabólica available for the masses to watch. Or at least for the VS hardcore fanbase, Chucky completists and anyone else who needs something like this in their lives.

Director Alfredo Salazar, known for his writing connection to the 70s Santo film series, also serves as the writer here to bring us a film seemingly inspired from the Child’s Play franchise. While it has been recently labeled as the “Mexican Child’s Play” (there’s a special feature on the disc with that very title), the killer doll concept is where the comparison should start and end. Despite having some seeds planted by that franchise, Salazar delivers a story that blossoms into something unique.

Tony (Roberto Guinar) receives a letter informing him that his aunt has died, and he has inherited her estate in Mexico. He quits his job and uproots his life in New York with his wife Annie (Holda Ramírez) to relocate south of the border and move into his new crib. Now I know what you’re thinking, what person just quits their job and drags their wife to another country without having reliable monetary income? Tony does, everyone, Tony does.

And what’s the first thing they do once they arrive in Mexico and check out the estate? They hit the bedroom, naturally. We are treated to a sex scene with an erotica song that feels like a knockoff of “Sadness” by Enigma (remember them?). Sounds fun and all, but the scene takes place completely in the dark and we see absolutely nothing. Maybe that’s why the sexy-time tune was pumping, so we could know what was exactly going down.

While Tony goes on a job interview, Annie explores the estate’s grounds in a tedious chore to experience, going room by room, plodding along. But it does lead us to her discovery of our antagonist—the evil clown doll, Payasito! Of all the things in the house, she decides to bring this monstrosity down to show Tony when he gets home. What an exciting way to celebrate (sic)! Then out of nowhere, she spouts off some exposition about rumors that Tony’s aunt dabbled in the dark arts and now we know where our title Diabolical Inheritance (the English translation for Herencia Diabólica) originates. For those of you who keep score for things like that.

Before proceeding with this review, you really need to visualize what Payasito looks like to truly embrace the rest of the film’s shenanigans. While Chucky resembles a cute ginger child, Payasito resembles a small clown that is much larger in stature than Chucky. That’s because Payasito is performed by an actor (Margarito Esparaza) in clown cosplay whenever he’s on the move (like Mannequin 2), and makes some really horrible facial expressions. Chucky dresses in “Good Guys” overalls and a striped shirt, but Payasito wears a new wave Santa hat while sporting a Sgt. Pepper jacket and Peter Pan tights. As you can now tell, he is quite beautiful.

Back to our story, Payasito begins to spook Annie cerebrally until she becomes unnerved to the point of having a complete mental break down, making her easy prey to eliminate. She dies but the unborn child survives, with Tony believing that her death was caused by her mental instability. Fast forward some years later and the couple’s surviving spawn has grown into child Roy (Alan Fernando), who at this point has already bonded with Payasito to help him over the loss of his mother. Dun-dun-duuunnn!

Meanwhile wealthy Tony remains single, still grieving his late wife, until his blonde assistant Doris encourages him to move on with his life and start seeing other people. And by other people, she naturally means herself. As the old Kanye West song lyric goes, “I ain’t saying she’s a gold digger…”, and it seems that she might be until we learn more about her character. Doris is played by the stunning Lorena Hererra who has an extremely extensive resume in Mexico, and she carries most of the film quite well during the feature’s second half. The singer and former Playboy centerfold for their Mexico edition is by far the most recognizable face in the cast.

Doris and Tony do indeed hookup and she moves into La casa de Herencia, where she does her best to impress Roy and lessen his obsession with the doll. There is a scene where they go to a nearby park without Payasito that is filled with famous fairytale figures, such as Pinocchio, Cinderella and King Kong! What, you didn’t know King Kong is a fairytale? Me neither. But Roy continues to be obsessed with Payasito after their trip, much to Doris’ chagrin.

Her actions to separate him from Roy gets Payasito angry, setting up the film’s most memorable scene. We already know that Payasito is a devil doll like Chucky, but now we learn he also has the power to invade people’s dreams like Freddy Krueger! Does Payasito enter the dream world and concoct a creative way to kill Doris in her sleep? No, he harnesses his power to sexually assault her instead. Yes that actually happens. After she awakens, Doris grabs the doll and tosses him into a lake, only to find him waiting for her by the time she gets back to the house. So now we know he also maintains the ability to “transport” like Jason Voorhees too. This doll is the total package!

More insanity happens before we close out the film with the longest victim chase sequence ever. It makes the previously mentioned painful house search scene seem like an eyeblink. It feels like it’s the film’s entire third act, filled with so much padding that you could soundproof an entire three-story house.

So how’s the transfer? Considering it was created using a mix of VHS and film source elements from 1993, they did one heck of a job! The work they put into it is especially noticeable in the dream invasion sequence, with the pulsing multi-colored psychedelic visuals. Super trippy stuff. Even the film’s score provides a pretty chill vibe, during the times when Payasito isn’t on the prowl.

If anything you read has piqued your interest in the very least, you should give it a shot. But if not, it is best to leave this doll on the shelf.

Herencia Diabólica is now available to purchase at VinegarSyndrome.com.

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