Blood Runs Cold

Starring: Hannah Oldenburg, Patrick Saxe, Andreas Rylander, Elin hugoson, Ralf Beck, David Liljelblad

Synopsis:

Following a busy year of relative success in the record business, Winona heads back to her tiny hometown in the remote outskirts of Stockholm to stay at a house her manager has rented where she can relax alone and hopefully find the inspiration to write some new songs. As a snowstorm brews and night begins to fall, she manages to find the house but is disappointed to discover it’s not the luxurious retreat she was expecting.

Shortly after settling in, Winona becomes unsettled by the creepy creaking sounds of the old house and decides to head to a bar in town for refreshments and some company. There, she bumps into a former boyfriend and a couple he knows and invites them back to the house for a few drinks. At the end of the night, with everyone either too drunk or too tired to drive home, they decide to crash until morning. But as the four friends prepare to sleep, an unknown presence stirs within the house, one that has been watching and waiting for the right moment to strike.

When I started watching Blood Runs Cold, I thought the press release that accompanied it had made a mistake – a Swedish production shot for just $5000? On this type of camera ? You’d never think it, especially as the film is shot in English...

There are bound to be comparisons between this and Roar Utag’s Fritt Vilt (aka Cold Prey), the excellent Norwegian slasher. This first feature from director Sonny Laguna almost achieves as much on a fraction of the budget. This perfectly shows that low-budget horror movies don’t always have to be either cheap zombie movies or “found footage” films.

The old house Winona stays in is pretty creepy – very old, run down, mould patches on the ceiling, and the odd rat scurrying around. Suddenly Winona’s confidence in her manager drops considerably (although there’s a nice zinger to this late in the film). The camera placements begin to suggest that there might be someone else in the house with her, but the film wisely holds back from showing anything definite.

Winona catches up with her ex-boyfriend Richard, and his new best friend Carl, and his girlfriend Liz, and after a few drinks invite them back to check out her scary new pad. Once thing leads to another, and Richard and Winona spend the night together, while Carl and Liz sleep over in the other room. It’s refreshing that Winona is the one who instigates their liaison.

The mid-section of the film sees the majority of the cast offed by our killer. Again, parallels are to be drawn with Fritt Vilt as the look of our killer is similar to the mountain man – wrapped up in heavy weather gear and crusted snow goggles. A big difference is that our killer is also prone to eating his victims. The kill-scenes are pretty well handled, with plenty of corn syrup sloshed around. A certain beheading is particularly well handled and quite shocking.

I was a bit worried after this part because it left our heroine on her own against the killer, with about a third of the film’s running time left to go. That’s a lot of potential stalking around trying to avoid the killer (the equivalent of running up and down corridors in some other low budget horror movies). However, the film surprised me by opening up a new hither-to unseen location and deepening the story, and introducing another character late in the game. Winona also has some way too close encounters too, sustaining some serious injuries which start making you wonder if she will really survive.

Verdict:

Even not counting the budget, this is quite an accomplished, efficient horror film. The spooky house setting is really good, and the cast while not the most experienced handle the English dialogue very well – so much so I thought this was an American or Canadian feature. Sonny Laguna does an excellent job, the camera-work is really good and I hope this film inspires other new film-makers to think twice about going down the tired “found footage” genre just because they have a small budget.

7 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)

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