FrightFest 2011 Review: Blood Runs Cold

• 25th Aug 2011

Swedish thriller (yet in the English language), Blood Runs Cold, is about a girl on a retreat in the middle of the snowy wilderness under attack from an axe killer. Wow! Back up: Well of course first she gets a few friends round to join her for a few drinks and they all duly decide to crash over. And then out of nowhere a masked assailant enters the building sets about disabling their car and hunting them down one at a time and the blood starts to flow.

Really, so far, it isn’t giving us anything terribly new (thinly layered characters set for the chop) but the film isn’t giving up on a thin premise. The blood and thrills to be fair are decently played. For a film on a miniscule budget, filmed on a daily basis at a stupidly cold temperature, the film-makers do make the most out of what they have. And for a barren setting, it’s ideal.

At 80 minutes of well executed (excuse the pun) thrills and suspense. And let’s just say that the stalking of the friends is merely the beginning; the second half of the film goes full on cat and mouse in, around, and under the house. It really doesn’t let up until it is finished and credits roll (We even get someone so terrified that their nose runs far more impressively than that girl from the Blair Witch!).

And yet Blood Runs Cold should have been in the home language as the English accents can often impede the actor’s delivery. I suspect the lines given would have sounded more natural and sincere in the native tongue. Here it comes across as an attempt to break a larger audience. But it’s one that horror and stalk fans should enjoy.

Blood Runs Cold is screening at FrightFest on Friday 26^th Aug at 7.30pm and Sunday 28^th Aug at 4.15pm

Steven Hurst