Stone Cold Dead (1979)

Director:

George Mendeluk

Writers:

Hugh Garner (novel)
George Mendeluk (writer)

Release Date:

5 March 1980 (USA)

Genre:

Thriller

Tagline:

A lady of the night can sell anything...even her life.

Plot Keywords:

Police | Serial Killer | Nude Woman Murdered | Policewoman Killing | Stripper

Cast

Richard Crenna	...	Sgt. Boyd
Paul Williams	...	Julius Kurtz
Linda Sorenson	...	Monica Page
Belinda Montgomery	...	Sandy MacAuley (as Belinda J. Montgomery)
Chuck Shamata	...	Sgt. Tony Colabre (as Charles Shamata)
Alberta Watson	...	Olivia Page
Andrée Cousineau	...	Bernice Carnival
Monique Mercure	...	Dr. Bouvier
George Chuvalo	...	Frank
Jennifer Dale	...	Claudia Grissom
Frank Moore	...	Teddy Mann
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Diane Bigelow
Paul Bradley
Tom Brennan
Yanci Bukovec
Marie Clark
Gail Dahms-Bonine		(as Gail Dahms)
Carol Forte
Nicky Fylan
Michael Ironside	...	Murdered Police Detective
Guidona Lee
Matthew Levitans
Sylvia Llewellyn
Mary Long
Jefferson Mappin
Robert McEwan
Herb Pacheco		(as Herb Pacheko)
Miles Potter
Alexis Radlin
Booth Savage
Dennis Strong	...	Danny De Lion
Wendy Thatcher
George Touliatos	...	Insp. Webb
Jack Van Evera
Elias Zarou

Also Known As:

Point Two-Two (Australia) (video title)
Sin Sniper (Philippines: English title)

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Australia:R | Norway:16 (original rating) | Norway:18 (re-rating) | USA:R | Canada:R (Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Ko-Zak Productions

Outstanding Canadian homage to the poliziotteschi/giallo

What a great little movie.

Crenna plays a lonely cop on the case of a warped sniper (who dresses like a villain from a Bava or Argento movie, with the long coat and hat). The sniper shoots hookers with a strange chrome-plated, detachable .22 caliber rifle that has a camera attached, which takes photos when a bullet is fired, capturing the image of the hooker's response to being shot.

There are a number of great sub-plots involving an aging hooker, her morally opposed daughter and a sentimental pimp, played with gusto by Paul Williams. The script handles these elements well, and there are a number of scenes that are meant to make us forget about the sniper's reign of terror and instill momentary thrills, such as a knife fight in the ladies' restroom of a sleazy club in which a hard black woman (the one with the blade) takes on a white undercover lady cop. "I'm gonna cut you three ways," the knife-wielding black woman says, "fast, deep and frequent." Bravo.

The sniper killings are presented coldly and in an unflinching manner. They are also alarmingly bloody, sometimes with pulsating geysers of gore from the entrance wounds. If you're upset by graphic depictions of violence, keep your distance from this one.

It's probably the most obvious attempt to recapture the essence of the giallo (Italian horror/murder mystery), and every facet of STONE COLD DEAD adhears to the formula. The shot design, characterizations and narrative structure are highly reminiscent of the Italian slasher films of the 70s, but it still feels unique and daring.

STONE COLD DEAD is one of the unsung thrillers of its era. It is a low budget film and didn't get much of a distribution (either theatrically or on video), but it deserves a significantly larger audience. It manages to be a thrilling, sleazy, gory, trashy tale with a great deal of intelligence, and that's rare.

Also, Bob Seger fans will enjoy the use of "Fire Down Below" in the opening five minutes.