Halloween 2024: September 25th

Cold Prey (2006)

Fritt vilt

A road into Hollywood, for some filmmakers, has been to make a low-budget horror movie. If the project is a breakout success, the director may have a chance to prove themselves with a big budget studio project. If this really works out, you become an industry titan like Raimi, del Toro, or Wan. If you are merely extremely successful, you'll end up with Adam Wingard, Ben Wheatley, Jon Watts, or David Sandberg's careers. This isn't true only in America. Roar Uthaug is maybe the only director in Norway specializing in effects-driven spectacles. "The Wave" was an Emmerichian disaster flick, becoming the highest grossing movie at the Norwegian box office in 2016. Uthaug recently made "Troll," the country's first kaiju movie. (And, yes, he went to Hollywood too, directing the 2018 "Tomb Raider" reboot.) For Uthaug, it really started with "Cold Prey," a 2006 slasher movie that put the Nordic world on the map as a destination for genre enthusiasts. As a die-hard slasher fanatic, I've heard about this one for years and the time has come to me to finally consider it. 

Jannicke, her boyfriend Elrik, and their pals Mikal, Ingunn, and Morten drive to the Jotunheimen mountain range for a weekend snowboarding excursion. Interested in avoiding crowds, they head to an obscure, snowy region. The day of fast-paced fun is ruined when Morten breaks his leg. The group seeks shelter in a near-by abandoned ski lodge, deciding to shack up there until a blizzard passes. The building clearly has a strange history, as one room features a burnt bed and there's a stash of stolen goods in the basement. After Ingunn disappears, the group soon realizes that they've stumbled into the home of pickax wielding, masked brute. And he doesn't appreciate the company. 

Uthaug's desire to emulate Hollywood thrills was already evident in his first feature. "Cold Prey's" original title translates to "Open Season" – which a shitty CGI cartoon used first over here – but it could as easily be called "The Norwegian Pickax Massacre." Specifically, the film is emulating the 2006 Platinum Dunes version of "Texas Chainsaw." Uthaug and cinematographer Daniel Voldheim apply a washed-out, grayish-green color filter to every scene. The film has the same sense of glossy grime to it as Marcus Nispel's remake, looking more like the car commercial version of a gritty slasher flick. This is perhaps a coincidence, as Uthaug also did extensive work in commercials before directing "Cold Prey." However, his film also copies the shaky-cam and frantic editing during the chase scenes. It layers on the same type of obnoxious jump scares prevalent in that remake, a slamming door or a guy jumping out at his sweetheart being loud examples. From there, some mediocre digital effects are inserted. There isn't a lot of CGI but it's always distracting when it does appear. When you factor in the plot of road-tripping young people falling into a masked killer's lair, the similarities are difficult to ignore. The twenty-somethings aren't quite as underwear model pretty as in the Michael Bay production but the same stink is all over this motion picture. 

Being derivative is never a problem in a slasher movie, as long as all the other mechanics are charming or well done. "Cold Prey," unfortunately, never quite takes off. One thing the movie doesn't take from 2006's "Chainsaw Massacre" is the downbeat gore. In fact, the use of the red stuff is fairly restrained, a lot of the actual killing blows happening off-screen or with minimal bloodshed. The glum visual approach prevents a creepy atmosphere from building. Most prominently, a simply terrible musical score kills all tension. Every dramatic moment or attempt at suspense is undermined by a blaring, sweeping score that projects the most over-sized emotions possible on scenes that should be quiet and eerie.  Look at the climax, where Jannicke is hiding from the killer as he lurks right over her. The score goes for a very loud heroic theme here, instead of something that will build tension. Without suspense, spooky visuals, or entertaining gore effects, what does a film like this offer?  

"Cold Prey" spends more time with its cast than you might expect, given the kind of movie this is. The first murder doesn't occur until forty minutes in, providing lots of time to get to know everyone. This could've been the chance to flesh out the meat sacks into complex human beings. Instead, everyone in "Cold Prey" slots into the standard slasher bait roles. Ingunn and Mikal are the horny couple, the guy eager to get into her pants but the girl putting the brakes on. Morten is the comic relief, his introductory moment being a masturbation joke. His key scene involves struggling with a tin can. Jannicke and Elrik have some route melodrama, with her hesitating to move in with him, that does nothing to make these two seem more real or interesting. What Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, as Jannicke, does  have is a compelling physicality. Once she's fighting off the killer with his own pickax on a mountain top, "Cold Prey" finally seems to come alive... After which, it ends, the movie cutting to black the instant its climax crashes to a stop. The lack of imaginative character building extends to the murderer. A cool looking slasher can go a long way. The script clearly has some investment in the guy, hinting at a vague and tragic backstory throughout. He remains nothing more than a big dude in some furs, with a raggedy hood over his head. NECA can't make an action figure of that! 

Disappointingly, "Cold Prey" doesn't utilize its uniquely Norwegian setting that much. There's some cinematic vistas of the mountaintops but most of the story takes place inside that drab, dingy lodge. It's a real waste of wintry isolation and blowing snow. Should've copied "The Thing," instead of Michael Bay! "Cold Prey" would imitate American slasher pictures in another way too: It spawned a franchise, begetting two sequels. (The U.S. remake rights were picked up too, by WWE Pictures. Nothing has come of it, robbing us of a chance to see the Big Show hack up snowboarders with a pickax.) People tell me the second is good and it wouldn't be the first time a slasher sequel improved on the original. I'll probably catch up with that one some day but "Cold Prey I" left me thoroughly underwhelmed. Derivative in the worst ways and lacking most of the cheap thrills we associate with the subgenre, only a strong final girl and that gnarly broken leg provide a reason to watch this export. [5/10]

The Vampire (1957)

The vampire is, from any reasonable perspective, the most popular of cinematic monsters. The undead bloodsuckers might be the most commonly occurring horror archetype in all of fiction. There likely aren't many years that didn't see the release of a vampire movie of some sort. Due to the sheer number of films dealing with this subject, we've had many variations and unique takes on the idea over the decades. The films on the subject, eager to distinguish themselves from the lot, usually go with a catchy title of some sort. Others, however, choose the most generic option possible. Such as the Paul Landres directed creature feature from 1957, known simply as “The Vampire.” Despite having the most blunt title possible for a film about, well, a vampire, Landres' feature actually put a clever spin on the premise, being one of a small group of movies that attempted to drag the fanged revenants of gothic lore into the nuclear era. 

Small town doctor Paul Beecher pays a house call to his friend, biologist Dr. Campbell. He finds the man, who had been doing research on vampire bats, dying of a mysterious heart ailment. Before he passes, he gives Beecher a bottle of pills. The next night, while afflicted with a headache, Paul's daughter unwittingly gives her father one of these pills. Afterwards, strange deaths start to pop up around town. People are dying suddenly of a rare blood virus that causes their veins to disintegrate, their necks also marked with two small bite marks. The doctor soon learns that the pills are designed to regress animals backwards on the evolutionary chart. When they run out, Beecher starts to experience unusual blackouts, mood swings, and missing time. He must face the impossible, horrible possibility that he has become a vampire. 

Clearly little thought was put into “The Vampire's” title – to the point that it's not the only film from 1957 called that – the movie actually presents a clever reinvention on the traditional bloodsucking beastie. This vampire is not an undead count that crawls out of a tomb. Instead, it's the result of science gone wrong, Dr. Beecher becoming a neck-biting marauder after taking some finky pills. This puts the film in the same company as the previous year's “The Werewolf,” which similarly put a sci-fi spin on a classic monster, and the next year's “Monster on the Campus,” which had a comparable plot involving cavemen. Scientific concepts like blood diseases, viruses, and vaguely understood points about evolutionary are used to justify the classic behaviors. The result is a script that has more in common with “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” than “Dracula.” Paul Beecher appears to be a respected member of his community, a local physician and single father that everyone trusts. He transforms into a vampire against his will, gaining a splotchy complexion and clawed fingernails when he does. If nothing else, it's a clever riff on a well-trotted premise.

“The Vampire” also reminded me of “The Hideous Sun Demon,” another werewolf variation that switched out curses for evolution-tinged mad science. In that movie, the protagonist's monstrous changes were a not-exactly-subtle metaphor for alcoholism. “The Vampire” provides the same level of thin veiling to tell a story about drug addiction. Paul gets a taste of the pills by accident. However, he soon finds himself craving them all the time. When he doesn't get a hit, he becomes moody and nervous, snapping in anger at his daughter or visibly shaking during an operation. His friends and colleagues notice this change in him but are unsure of how to approach it. He begs a nurse to stay with him after hours, hoping she can keep him from relapsing, before stealing from her purse to get his pills back. After Paul comes clean to a co-worker about his pill-popping habit, the other guy tries to lock away the substance.. Only for Paul to attack him and break the bottle out in an unhinged rage. Lead actor John Beal, shockingly good, is clearly invoking the jittery, sweating behavior of a respectable junkie that is loosing his ability to disguise his unseemly habit. That Paul has no memory of what he does when he blacks out, literally becoming a monster when he either gets his pills or goes too long without them, makes the subtext all the more obvious. 

Veteran cinematographer Jack MacKenzie, clearly in another attempt to show how modern a spin the film is on the age-old idea, shoots the movie like a film noir. When talking with a police officer friend of his, Beecher stands in an office that is crisscrossed with shadows. The scenes of Paul admitting his condition are similarly moody, the black-and-white photography creating a distinctly 1950s style of psychology darkness. This is in contrast to the earlier scenes of domestic bliss, when our protagonist is spending time with his utterly wholesome ballerina daughter. (MacKenzie would also shoot 42 episodes of “Leave It to Beaver” later in his career, which these scenes resemble.) The highlight of the film occurs when the vampire stalks the comely nurse as she walks home, before turning his attention to a nosy old woman. There's a classical eeriness to the fleeting shots of the obscured monster leaping behind a tree or peering at his prey. The sequence is surprisingly tense and the film never reaches that level of suspense again. Certainly not in the underwhelming finale, which disappointingly takes place at day. 

Also helping elevate the film is a evocative score from Gerald Friend. The main refrain, with its thumping bass melody, reminds me a bit of the “Jaws” score. Coincidence? Probably. “The Vampire” is the sort of motion picture that benefits from no expectations. Go in expecting a typical vampire movie and be surprised that this is a rather unique riff on the known cliches of the story. That repeated attempts were made in the late fifties to update these old school concepts for the atomic age is fascinating to me, revealing an unwillingness to move beyond the traditional symbols of the genre. When combined with a strong lead and some intriguing comparison between undead blood lust and drug addiction, “The Vampire” is a hidden gem for classic horror buffs. [7/10]

Beasts: What Big Eyes

By overlaying the title over an image of a roaring cheetah, "What Big Eyes" feels like it could be the first episode of "Beasts." It was actually the second-to-last to be both filmed and aired. Nevertheless, it's an intriguing summation of the series' ideas. It begins with RSPCA agent Bob Curry investigating a shady exotic animal dealer. He notices that several "Hungarian Timberwolves" have been sold to an unassuming pet shop. After looking into it, he finds the quaint shop is owned by a timid woman named Florence. It's actually her father, an eccentric geneticist named Leo Raymont, that has been purchasing the wolves. Leo is obsessed with the myth of the werewolf and believes he can scientifically replicate it. He has created what he calls a "Grandma serum" (named after the Little Riding Hood story) from the animals' blood and been injecting himself with it. Bob is disturbed but fascinated, trying to keep Raymont from destroying more wolves and himself. 

Nigel Kneale, the esteemed creator and writer of "Beasts," was fascinated with correlating mythological concepts with scientific ones. Or at least sci-fi ones. "Quatermass and the Pit" had ancient beliefs about demons inspired by medieval man experiencing psychic trauma when contacting alien lifeforms. "The Stone Tapes" explained ghostly haunting as the result of the pain of the dying imprinting on their surroundings. "What Big Eyes"  would see Kneale approaching the werewolf legend from this angle. Dr. Raymont explains that humans and wolves share a common ancestor millions of years ago, before evolutionary paths went separate ways. That the idea of the werewolf myth is a genetic "memory" of this ancient lineage. That stories like Little Red Riding Hood are another example of human minds subconsciously invoking this connection. His work seeks to awaken this long forgotten link, mostly via injecting himself with wolf's blood. As someone fascinated with folklore, especially the way unconnected cultures conceived of similar ideas, this is an interesting theory to entertain. 

Kneale, however, was also a rationalist and "Beasts" was as interested in how human nature reflects animal nature. "What Big Eyes" is also a modern updating of the mad scientist concept. Raymond is an egotistical obsessive. Like all mad scientists, he's much more interested in proving his superiority over his peers than furthering the cause. He's spent his entire life devoted to his ideas, seemingly thinking and talking about them nonstop. In the seventies, a mad scientist didn't have an Igor to assist him. Instead, that duty fell to Raymont's daughter. Who he has an irrepressible contempt for, never letting her forget that she's intellectually "inferior" to him. Unsurprisingly, a lifetime of living under such a hateful man has left Florence a deeply broken person. "What Big Eyes'" climax isn't a moment of monster movie horror. Instead, it's a heartbreaking monologue from Madge Ryan, detailing how Florence suffered all her life from her father's cruelty. The suggestion seems to be that neither legendary curses nor genetic pseudo-science is necessary to turn a man into a beast. Humans do that just fine by how they treat other living things. (A point further emphasized by the cruel way the animal trader in the first scene treats the species he imports.) 

"What Big Eyes" is full of fascinating ideas and strong acting like this. Patrick Magee and Michael Kitchen – who, coincidentally, also both starred in the "Orson Welles' Great Mysteries" episode I watched the other day – share many interesting conversations. Magee conveys the exact right level of conceited opulence as a man totally convinced of his own superiority. Kitchen makes Bob an empathetic man deeply concerned by the welfare of animals, an ideal foil.  These two talking is also almost all "What Big Eyes" has. Previous episodes of "Beasts" cleverly wrote around the show's meager budget, using disturbing sound design to suggest the beasts rather than showing them. We don't see any wolves in "What Big Eyes," other than a rather frail looking one in a cage at the end. There certainly aren't any werewolves either. The episode still accomplishes a lot with a little. If it's basically a filmed stage show between two actors, then it's a very good one. The final scene brings the title around in a tense, tragic way. This still likely ranks among the weaker episodes of this overall excellent series that I've seen, more academic than most and lacking the bone-chilling denouncements that "During Barty's Party," "Baby," and "Buddyboy" had. [7/10]

The Addams Family: The Addams Family Meets the Undercover Man

I think the "Addams Family" writers' room might have thrown together three separate episode premises for "The Addams Family Meet the Undercover Man." Pugsley has gotten into ham radio, even converted the play room into the Code Room. The nature of his messages attracts the interest of CIA agent named Hollister. He recruits the local postman, Mr. Briggs, to spy on the Addams. He's soon scared away, forcing Hollister to recruit a local plumber named Mr. Conkey next. That doesn't work out too well either, especially after Conkey encounters Kitty Kat. Out of ideas, Hollister himself steps into the Addams home and sees why everyone is so timid around these folks. 

Yes, "The Addams Family Meet the Undercover Man" is another episode devoted to a square getting an unexpected dose of the Addams Family aesthetic. In this case, it's three different squares and each one reacts predictably. Not to say there aren't some fun gags here. While snooping around Gomez's desk, Postman Briggs uncovers a roaring turtle, a chattering shrunken head, and an exploding letter from a witch doctor. There's an especially amusing bit where Morticia discovers Conkey with a Walkie Talkie in his hand. One of the best one-liners arrives when Hollister, winding up in the stocks after the Addams mistake him for a malicious spy, attempts to bribe Pugsley. The boy's response suggests the Addams have a cop buried in the neighboring cemetery. Now I'm picturing Lurch groaning out "ACAaaaaaB!" 

As sneaky as this show could get about it's subversive ideas, it was still beholden to 1960s attitudes. Not much is made of the idea that the U.S. government is spying on its own citizens like this. The Addams seem totally fine with Hollister's invasion of their privacy, once they confirm he's an actual CIA. I guess it's okay when an American does it? Still funny to imagine there being a folder on the Addams buried somewhere in the CIA's filing cabinets. Another indicator that this episode is from a different time is in the first scene. Pugsley communicates with a Japanese man over his radio, leading to a very unfortunate accent. Ah, these things come with territory, I suppose. 

Though about as standard an episode of this series as can be, "The Addams Family and the Undercover Man" is elevated somewhat by the guest stars. Rolfe Sedan and the very Don Knotts-ian Norman Leavitt are both funny fellows as the postman and the plumber. They don't make sitcom actors like those two anymore, who can get a laugh with nothing but a cockeyed expression. George Neise, as Hollister, also makes a decent straight man, especially when he comes face-to-face with Lurch. The final scene features the expected running gag, of someone's experience with the Addamses scaring them into a different line of work. More notably, the scene also features Gomez and Morticia enjoying a hookah together. Now am I to believe that the Addams are smoking mere tobacco here? I think marijuana is too mundane for them too. Let's assume it's some sort of exotic, probably poisonous strain of herb that would turn a normal person's hair grey after a single puff. [6/10]