THE COLD PREY COLLECTION
***
Directed by Roar Uthaug, Mats Stenberg, Mikkel Braenne.
Starring Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Viktoria Winge, Tomas Alf Larsen.
Horror, Norway, 278 mins, Certificate 15.
Released on Limited Edition Blu-ray by Second Sight Films on 6th July
Is the original FRITT VILT – COLD PREY – really 20 years old?! We undoubtedly had a not dissimilar sense of existential dread in 2006 as that which currently overwhelms us daily, but it still somehow seems like a less terrifying point in time. Plus, some of us (sigh) were still in our twenties, practically babies.
While Hollywood horror took a post-9/11 turn for the sadistic and often pessimistic and young French renegades were delivering startlingly grisly slashers as social unrest swept their capital, Norwegian filmmaker Roar Uthaug invoked the approach and ambience of the comparatively mild original U.S. slasher cycle. COLD PREY (2006) has a marvellously gaudy onscreen description of its killer (“He’s the size of a house with a huge pickaxe!”) that echoes the tagline of a schlocky 80s American slasher, but otherwise plays it sensibly straight, stripping away the by-now-tiresome self-awareness of the SCREAM cycle (at that point, on hiatus) in favour of a straight, suspenseful and atmospheric thriller.
Crucially, it gives us characters worth rooting for. The brisk exposition is partly conveyed by a portentous title sequence: back in the 1970s, a young boy vanished in Jotunheim, an area rife with missing person cases, and was presumed dead following a devastating landslide. In the present, a car full of young folks “searching for the ultimate rush” and led by the go-getting Erik (Tomas Alf Larsen) and his girlfriend Jannicke (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal), arrive at a suspiciously empty lodge for a weekend of snowboarding. A visitor’s book hasn’t been updated since 1975 and a debilitating accident involving likeable comic relief Morten (Rolf Kristian Larsen) – who refers to masturbation as “sex with my closest friend” – also doesn’t bode well for a rollicking good time
The movie admittedly falls back on the sub-genre’s cliches: false scares and fake outs, alongside the figure-swiftly-moving-past-the-camera jolt felt a tad weary by this point. These more hackneyed moments are balanced by unusually appealing characters, credible relationships and a superbly alienating / spectacular backdrop. Explicit gore is played down but there are relatable, wince-inducing scenes of personal injury and, for once, we care when someone is brutally offed: the first kill (40 minutes in) is a subversion of supposed “rules” in both the characterisation of the victim and how we’re sad to see them perish. Nodding to Bill McKinney’s unforgettable antagonist in DELIVERANCE, the hulking killer is credited as “Mountain Man” (and played by Rune Melby), but the intense finale unmasks not a monster, but a human victim of a tragedy.
COLD PREY II (2008), directed by Mats Stenberg, has impressive final girl Berdal taken to a nearby hospital while her friends’ corpses are retrieved from a crevasse – and is heavily indebted to Rick Rosenthal’s HALLOWEEN II (1981). It carries over several of the merits of the original: Stenberg relies more on visceral gore (note the use of a fire extinguisher a la IRREVERSIBLE) but maintains the appealing characters and snowy mountain setting. It arguably makes better use of its deserted, underlit hospital setting than the Michael Myers outing and stages strong suspense scenes in a morgue, a police car and the first film’s empty hotel. Though, inevitably, you won’t be surprised by either the killer-back-from-the-dead shenanigans or the final kiss-off line.
Mikkel Braenne’s prequel Cold Prey III (2010) is by far the weakest, falling into the trap of many U.S. horror sequels by pointlessly expanding the killer’s backstory, starting with a 1976 prologue before mostly unfolding 12 years later, complete with Kim Wilde “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” needle drop. A roadkill shot, a la THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, serves as a harbinger for our latest band of doomed youngsters – and this time they know all about the legend of the kid killed all those years ago, setting off to explore the place where he perished. Huge cell phones and Walkman’s provide 80s period detail before they skinny dip, fool around and encounter the killer. It’s nastier than both earlier films, with an emphasis on arrow penetrations, skinning’s and people tied up / mutilated, but suffers from the same issue as contemporary horror prequels, because it has to leave no loose ends for the later-set first two films so everyone has to die.
Second Sight’s 3-disc box set has gorgeous new artwork by James Neal, five collector’s art cards and a 120-page book of essays by writers including the excellent JA Kerswell, the slasher fanatic who oversees the wonderful Hysteria Continues podcast. Archival extras from the old COLD PREY DVD are carried over, along with a new commentary with Roar Uthaug and his leading lady; both also feature in engaging new interviews about the first and second films. Uthaug talks about how he pitched the idea as a remake of TEXAS CHAIN SAW with snow instead of heat, while reflecting on his efforts to flesh out character relationships and the overall mission of making a “fun” experience to watch with packed audiences. Berdal enthuses over her early career (this was her second feature film), and you also get Uthaug’s early shorts, a rightly discarded alternate ending, visual fx and production design insights.
The sequels have further supplementary material: COLD PREY II has an interview and commentary from director Stenberg, bloopers and deleted scenes, while the third movie has behind the scenes snippets and an insightful new commentary with Phillip Escott and Christer Andresen, an authority on the subject and author of “Norwegian Nightmares: The Horror Cinema of a Nordic Country”.
Steven West