It's very old formula. But why not?! As long as this independent movie can keep it together with different atmosphere and some motif also.
I loved the whole nice effort; the good acting; especially from (Chris Mulkey) as the writer, the thrilling moments; as we asked ourselves was the stranger here to kill the wife for the husband's sake as the misleading first scene's dialogue?!, or was he the one who tried to kill him earlier by the gun?!.. etc. Some scenes also; the drunkenness' one between the husband and the stranger was beautiful, and of course the plot of that cabin in the middle of nowhere with a troubled generator that could make an atmosphere of suspense of its own, with sense of not seeing the truths clearly too.
On the other hand, I didn't like that hurly-burly hugger-mugger ending. It has some fabrications; the stranger killed the writer by throwing him drunk on the ice, without a bullet, a car crash, or even a poison in his drink?!, and some dull solutions: the killer kills the daughter of the cabin's owner, kills her father, the wife kills him, and the wife gets herself killed by coincidence! That's too much; it made the third act not only bloody but messy and fake. To make matter worse, it said expressly that the good guy in that bunch, namely the well cultured man, the high-minded artist, and the honest loving husband--is so blinded all along to see the truth of his wife, and the fact about his guest, plus he is so weak to defend himself, so the script made the high natural equity avenge on the evil ones for him, causing the most feeble climax where all the bad guys got away by killing themselves, or by dying haphazardly!
Though, maybe that was the very thought of (Kurt Anderson) and (Richard Brandes) as the movie's writers. Perhaps they want to say that the intellectual man in that society of greed and violence has no chance even if he was an ex-marine, no heroic strength except his virtues which didn't save him at all, no smartness to doubt people or things, being too naive to expose any plots around him, and - above all - has no capability to overthrow the more intelligent rough impostors. So he is the perfect victim!
Hmmm.. well, (Stephen King) in one of his novels had another point of view when he compelled his literate character, in another distant environment, under similar harmful circumstances. And although (King) deprived his writer of nearly all of his body's powers, but as a lead he could obtain victory at last by his brain and ability of studying his enemy to attack the faults. On the contrary, according to (Dead Cold)'s theory, this type of intellectual couldn't obtain any victory except only his surviving at the woods to go home again! That could be the main motif of the script as a fine satiric remark about the weakness of today's wise, innocent and noble artist, who lives in a world that has totally the contrary peculiarities. Otherwise, it's just a hastiness to make any artificial happy ending!
(Dead Cold) is anything but dead cold. It's part enjoyable, part meaningful, and part slasher. It's straight-to-video B-movie, with mostly the good senses of the word, accompanied by hard-to-forget bitter substance.
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