The Cold
- Css Darth-Sheol
- Jan 25, 2015
- 3 min read
The Cold is evidently the same movie as “The Game.” Both are rather generic titles, but the latter is really more appropriate since there are only a couple of scenes specifically dealing with cold while the premise revolves around a game. The story revolves around a group of rich people who have gotten bored with normal games. Now they bring people to an island to face their worst fears with the last remaining person receiving a prize of a million dollars. Sounds a bit like a reality game show I used to watch (“Fear” I think it was).
When this latest group of players arrives people quickly begin disappearing and showing up dead. Elaborate pranks to scare everyone or lethal consequences to a game gone wrong? We're never quite sure if the group hosting the game takes it as far as murdering the losers or if this is an undesired turn of events for them as well since not everything in the realm of murder is what it appears to be. A few strong-willed members of the group are determined to find out what's really going on, and a couple may have secrets of their own to affect the outcome.
The movie teeters on having promise. There's the question of whether or not we're seeing staged events or people really getting killed (in the movie reality, of course, obviously Bill Rebane didn't kill his actors). There's the possibility of a crazed lunatic either hijacking the game for his own amusement or being a victim of it himself. There's an undercover investigation subplot and the possibility that someone is turning the twisted game on the group that runs it.
There are lots of possibilities here, and played out right they could make for a good tale of suspense and unexpected but logical plot directions. Unfortunately, not one of these ideas plays out to a satisfactory conclusion. It seems to me that the movie makers got so focused on surprising the viewers that they didn't concern themselves with having a plot that actually makes sense. Most disconcerting is when, rather than have a real ending, they play a sort of prank on the viewer -- that yanked me right out of the movie, gave me the middle finger, and rolled credits while laughing at my expense.
Acting is passable. For a B horror movie these folks are good enough. If the plot didn't unravel so completely the weaker acting would be easier to overlook. With everything else that's wrong the performances do nothing more than rise to obscurity. I don't even remotely recognize a single name in the cast, and while I do recognize the director's name, Rebane, I don't associate him with anything I particularly enjoy.
The movie seems to try to mix whimsical with suspenseful. The opening music and running theme of the rich game runners is a lively saloon piano tune. Amusing poems open and close the feature. The tone of the rest of the movie is tense and creepy – at least it tries to be. The mixture isn't done very well and serves to make the more comical elements seem out of place rather than part of a smooth mixture. I assume the whimsical tone is supposed to be the point of the ending, but rather than amusing it comes across as weak.
MORALITY:
Warning: There are a couple of minor spoilers in this section; I seriously doubt anyone is going to care enough about the movie to be worried about them, though..
There's a fair amount of nudity. Sometimes it's quick or partial but also includes some clear full-frontal shots. All of it is female with one scene of a guy barely covered. While there's no sex there is a lot of sexuality including dialogue, groping, and insinuation.
There is some violence, but most of it happens off screen with us seeing only the results later. For example, a person is shot in the head. We only hear the shot and then later see a corpse with a bullet hole. These kinds of things are done to keep us guessing about whether or not the various murders are real or staged. A severed head, which is rather gruesome at first, is later shown to be a fake stealing its impact (which is actually the point). There are some frightening scenes, though, such as someone being tied up and tormented with a gun.
There's a good bit of strong language.
SPIRITUALITY:
Death is the amusement of many of the characters, and life cheap. It's all one big practical joke anyway, right?
FINAL THOUGHTS:
You need to really be hard up for a movie to watch to take time for this one. If the plot hadn't unraveled I'm sure I might have bumped up the rating, but with such an unsatisfactory ending and nothing else redeeming I give it skid marks.
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