Cold and Dark (2005)

Director:

Andrew Goth

Writer:

Joanne Reay (written by)

Genre:

Crime | Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

To Protect and Sever.

Plot:

When Detective Mortimer Shade is somehow killed in a freezer, a parasite called a grail possesses his body...

Plot Keywords:

Surprise After End Credits | Bathroom Scene | Hole In Wall | Little Boy | Mother Son Relationship

Cast

Luke Goss	...	John Dark
Kevin Howarth	...	Mortimer Shade
Matt Lucas	...	Dr. Elgin
Carly Turnbull	...	Albany (as Carly Jane Turnbull)
David Baker	...	Red
Michael Culkin	...	Lardeson Dahl
Carrie Clarke	...	Slik (as Caroline Ball)
Cassandra Bell	...	Rachel
Jake Curran	...	Lenny
Steven Elder	...	Mabbs
David Gant	...	Superintendent Maddox
Hamish Hamilton	...	Bollingbroke
Elizabeth Healey	...	Specs
Dan van Husen	...	Solly Tunkel
Rhys Moosa	...	Tommy

Also Known As:

Cold & Dark (USA) (DVD title)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong gruesome violence and gore, language and sexuality.

Runtime:

94 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English | German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

New Zealand:R18 | UK:18 | Australia:R | Finland:K-18 | Germany:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Cornwall, England, UK

Company:

Paradigm Hyde Films

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: As Tommy is escaping down the stairs, someone wearing a yellow hard-hat becomes briefly visible in the bottom left of the frame.

Quotes:

John Dark: When you do the job, right, because of the stress... I can see that you get off on it. I'd imagine that maybe the... you know, that nothing else got you off.
Albany: No. I get off on sex.
John Dark: Really?
Albany: I come at the drop of a head.

Beautiful but Boring... Britain's Best? Been Better...

Two violent English cops fight crime until one of them is infected with some supernatural parasite that makes him crave the taste of human flesh. The violence continues, but in a slightly different way.

The first thing that struck me about this film is the use of a blue lens, which seems to be a new fad in horror movies. "Saw III" used a similar tint, and I know I've seen it a few other places, as well. While I like the mood the tint brings out, this technique is becoming too obvious for me and I hope the fad goes away in a year or two because it's just going to get old.

Horror fans who like gore will like this movie, or at least like the gore in this movie, because there's plenty of it. In one scene, a man is waiting at a glory hole to get a little sausage. Moments later, plenty of fluid comes through the hole, but not what he was expecting. Minutes later, another man is shoved through a wall right in front of a hysteric small child, his face mangled to all hell. The violence continues like this for most of the film.

By the way, I also enjoyed the glory hole scene for its use of a Rubik's cube, which I haven't seen used effectively in a movie since the 1985 Chuck Norris flop, "Code of Silence". (Yes, I found a way to reference Chuck Norris in a horror film review.)

I was a bit distracted by the English accents, which are fairly thick and the volume is not loud enough to help you make the words distinct. This is sort of like "Trainspotting", but I found this even less easy to adjust to. I almost would have welcomed some Americans dubbing voices over the top of the film, despite my dislike of dubbing.

The director (Andrew Goth?) knows how to film a scene and get right where he needs to be. Early on during a rooftop scene, he implements some dynamite overhead directing, as if from a helicopter or from Superman's point of view. It was very nice, and much more than you usually get from people you've never heard of. Another reviewer said that Goth, "displays a strong visual style and a good eye for interesting camera angles," which I think is a great way to say it.

The movie sadly suffered from a convoluted plot, where I asked myself "who are these characters?" a few times. Earlier people are already forgotten by the middle of the film, and you aren't really sure what the underlying plot actually is. If the first half is drug dealers who don't show up in the second half, and the second half is about a parasite that never shows up until 43 minutes into the film, where is the consistent story? Also, another reviewer called the movie "well-made but intensely boring" and I would not necessarily disagree. While I was not bored, the lack of connection to the movie made it more difficult to get into what should have been a breathtakingly beautiful work of art.

I also never even figured out who the two main characters were, which I think is a huge drawback. I know the cops are named Dark and Shade, rather than Dark and Cold as you would expect, but I did not know which was which throughout most of the first half. I am pretty sure no background on them was offered and we had no reason to give a fig about either one of them.

I would recommend this film to others, mostly because I would like to hear more opinions on it. I think with some minor tweaking this would have been a great movie, and I hate to dismiss it out of hand on a whim. I would give it a second viewing just to be more sure of my thoughts on the movie. It is not bad, but I'm not sure if I can say it's great. Until further examination, I leave this film with a slightly-above-average grade.