Blood Runs Cold - review

Blood Runs Cold –

Blood Runs Cold had my blood running bored.  It’s nice to see another solid slasher effort from Sweden, much like the highly celebrated Cold Prey series, but with a much smaller “basement” budget Blood Runs Cold has a lot to make up for.  Those looking for more bangs for their buck might venture elsewhere; the movie never attempts to step outside the box in terms of the mechanics that make up a slasher movie.  Hell it feels snug as a bug in a rug in that box. 

The movie sets itself up as an atmospheric slow melt, which might send some slash heads running right away.  Most of the film is spent watching the main girl investigate strange noises and explore the claustrophobic confines of her winter vacation home.  She gets bad feelings and vibes from the place so she invites some friends up to stay with her.  We are introduced to the proverbial meat of the movie, her small circle of friends seem to fill out the sensitive ex-boyfriend, party animal, and wild child stereotypes, but the characters aren’t offensively obnoxious, so it makes the run-time less grating.  None the less you will still be yelling at your screen for someone to kill these kids and end the thing already.  

The deaths are mostly standard fare, much like everything else in this movie, it all has that tired “been there, done that” vibe to it.  They even had the balls to throw in an off the screen death, which for a low budget deal should be a no-no.  Usually off screen deaths are there to build the audience up to the real good murder set pieces, or off screen deaths are deaths of function rather than plot driven, like the death of the mechanic in Halloween. But in this movie it just comes off as lazy.  About the most notable thing in the entire film is an excellent decapitation scene towards the end, but by the time you reach it you would have stared at your clock ten times over waiting for the damn thing to wrap up.  This is a movie I heard get a lot of praise, and while it did not offend me or have any real plot gaps and was pretty competently put together, I couldn’t help but feel like it was an effort to get through because so little happens that isn’t already found in a dozen other stalk and slash deals.  The main slasher of the movie, an undead frozen cannibal, is never explained.  He just is.  I would have liked knowing a little more about him, even the slightest detail about his past would have made him stand apart from the pack, but alas we are left with a bunch of unexplained shit, like they didn’t expect people to wonder about this guy. 

Blood Runs Cold is a competent and well put together slasher, however that in and by itself doesn’t make it an exciting movie.  Bad acting, wonky foreign accents, and a dragging pace seem to slay any chance of excitement up on the screen.  I’d rather watch an igloo melt, which is too bad because I am normally very happy with snowbound slashers, but this one doesn’t even seem to try.