Plot: Captain John Boyd receives a promotion after defeating the enemy command in a battle of the Mexican-American War, but because the general realizes it was an act of cowardice that got him there, he is given a backhanded promotion to Fort Spencer, where he is third in command. The others at the fort are two Indians, George and his sister, Martha, who came with the place, Chaplain Toffler, Reich, the soldier; Cleaves, a drugged-up cook; and Knox, who is frequently drunk. When a Scottish stranger named Colquhoun appears and recovers from frostbite almost instantly after being bathed, he tells a story about his party leader, Ives, eating members of the party to survive. As part of their duty, they must go up to the cave where this occurred to see if any have survived. Only Martha, Knox, and Cleaves stay behind. George warns that since Colquhoun admits to eating human flesh, he must be a Windigo, a ravenous cannibalistic creature.

Tags: 1840s, based on fact, bear trap, bizarre, bleeding to death, blood, blood splatter, broken leg, california, cannibal, cannibalism, cave, chaplain, chase scene, corpse, coward, death, death of brother, decapitation, deception, dismemberment, eaten alive, fall from height, fantasy sequence, fight scene, flashback sequence, fort, frontier, gore, head butt, hit in the face, homoeroticism, horse, hung upside down, impalement, intestines, jumped off cliff, knife in thigh, knife throwing, loss of friend, male nudity, male rear nudity, manifest destiny, mexican american war, native american, neck breaking scene, passed out drunk, pitchfork, pretend to be dead, roots, satire, scottish, self mutilation, severed head, shot in the chest, shot in the shoulder, shot to death, sierra nevada mountains, skeleton, stabbed in stomach, stabbed in the arm, stabbed in the back, stabbed in the chest, stabbed to death, stew, strength, survival, threatened with knife, throat slitting, twist in the end, vomit, vomit scene, walnut, wendigo, westward expansion, windigo, show all tags.