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Welcome back to “Slanderoid’s Monster of the Week!” where I gush about one of my favorite monsters for nearly a thousand words and you encourage this troublesome behavior by engaging with it with your eyeballs. Yes, I know this is over a year late. If you have a problem with it (or think that this week’s monster isn’t one of the objectively greatest of all time), leave me a comment on my MySpace page. Otherwise, you’ll be happy to know that I made good on my other promise and we’re looking at a classical monster:

Wendigo

In fact, in terms of classicalness, this one is even more classicaller than a lot of what we consider classical monsters: the wendigo goes all the way back to legends handed down by indigenous Americans before we white fuckheads came and ruined everything. According to legend (and this Wikipedia page I have open in the other tab), wendigos tended to crash the party in the middle of famines. So, not only were people hungry as all hell, but they also had monsters to deal with, too. What a time to be alive, huh? But that’s not coincidence. See, wendigos can be created from hungry people. More specifically, people who (a) get greedy and eat more than their fair share of food that everyone in the family or community must share or (b) eat another person (out of desperation or just for funsies).

And, honestly, I think this is one of the scariest parts of the wendigo. You don’t have to have a curse put on you, you don’t have to be bitten by one, you don’t have to bone one… No, you just have to be hungry enough at Nana’s birthday dinner at Golden Corral that you go ballistic on the buffet and BAM! Now you’re trying to eat everyone you’ve ever loved while they’re trying to get down on some Golden Corral popcorn shrimp. Name a greater tragedy than that. I’ll wait.

That’s when one of the other scariest (or most badass? I don’t know the difference anymore…) traits of wendigos come into play: according to some legends, the more people they eat, the larger they get. So, congratulations; after you’ve eaten Nana and everyone in her knitting circle when she went to blow out the candles on her cake, you’ve grown into a full-blown kaiju. You’re covered in blood, mashed potatoes, and b-day cake, and busting through the roof of the buffet.

As awesome as that mental image is, it’s, of course, all hyperbolic. This monster is a symbol of gluttony in the face of deprivation (not normal American gluttony). Folks needed an explanation for the deaths and disappearances of people who made their way into the wilderness, undoubtedly to find something to eat. It is an ingenious creation that doubled as a scapegoat and a warning about overindulgence in times of scarcity.

So, with that in mind, the question still remains: Why does it look so fucking cool?

Seriously. Look at it:

That is so fucking awesome. Goddamn.

Is that what passed for scary in olden times but I’ve become too desensitized to be spooked by it? Unfortunately, no. What is undoubtedly the most badass-looking monster in this series so far is a product of anglicization. Before “The Wendigo” by Algernon Blackwood (the most racist book I’ve ever read, btw), wendigos appeared as gaunt, starving, and sometimes gigantic versions of their human counterparts. After that book, other creatives took Blackwood’s version of the wendigo and ran wild with it until it became what we know now. So, as cool as it is, it’s a product of some shitty dude bastardizing something from another culture. Just like everything we know and love today. (See: music.)

Both versions are cool as fuck. That’s what makes it more of a shame that we don’t see more wendigos in horror movies and games: they’re every bit as flexible in their appearance and powers as vampires. I’d love it if one film producer would stop and ask themselves, “Hey, does the world really need another movies about zombies? I think I’ll make a movie about a wendigo instead!” That’s the future I want to see!

…Wait. They already did that when they made “Antlers”. And, ummm… Well, they probably should have made a lame fucking zombie instead.

Ugh. Lame zombies are all we really deserve, anyway.

Thanks for checking out this week’s “Monster of the Week!”. I hope you enjoyed it and that you’ll come back next time when I’ll be talking another of my favorite monsters: zombies*! Yeah, I just got done talking shit about zombies and rightfully so. But zombies* are scary as hell. What’s the asterisk about? I don’t have time to explain right now. I’m super hungry and I’ve got to go to my grandma’s birthday thing at the buffet. Come back next time and I’ll tell you all about the difference between zombies and zombies*!