Cold Wind Blowing
**Seen at the 2020 Women in Horror Film Festival**
The movie I kept coming back to during “Cold Wind Blowing” was “Cloverfield.” The way it set up the character dynamics nimbly while also getting to the plot as quickly as possible, and the mayhem to follow, regardless of what you think of that found footage monster movie as a movie, Drew Goddard’s screenplay is precise and a model of efficiency. Dionne Copland’s script for “Cold Wind Blowing” is its opposite, and the result was a slog to sit through.
Six friends, with an assortment of character dynamics including family (Nomi (Angela Way) and Thomas (Cameron Petersen) are siblings), lovers (Thomas and Samantha (Nalani Wakita)), best friends (Nomi and Casey (M.J. Kehler)), former lovers (Nomi and Max (Alexander Lowe)), and a black sheep friend you know is going to screw everything up in one way or another (Nick (Griffin Cork)), are going up to a house in the woods for Christmas. On the way, they are warned (at least the women are) about a mysterious creature up in that area. Eventually, they find themselves under attack, and with little possibility of rescue or survival. Ironically, it’s another Goddard screenplay that this feels like it’s following to the “t” up to the point they start getting attacked. Of course I’m referring to “The Martian.”
The most fundamental problem “Cold Wind Blowing” has going for it in its first half is an inability to quickly establish these characters and getting them up to the woods in a hurry while also giving us the exposition we need. This film runs 112 minutes, and it feels like a first cut rather than a locked print. There is way too much dead time and meandering of pace going on here to get us drawn into the story, and it doesn’t help that many of the characters, and the ways they are established, are either annoying or unlikable. That’s not a kiss of death in this type of horror movie (see: “Cloverfield” or a lot of slasher films from the ’80s), but when the film has no urgency to put them in any danger like this one does, it is a painful experience. The horror does not begin until an hour in, and when it does, it’s not terribly impactful, and- ironically- almost feels like a flash in the pan in how quickly it goes by. What we are left with is the aftermath, and if I liked these characters, or it got to the next moment of terror quickly, I might be able to get behind that. There are a couple of things I like here; what we see of the creature is an interesting design, the way the film isolates the characters is clever (it clearly takes place at a time before cell phones), and there’s a way the creature seems to operate to get into the heads of the characters that is different and results in a scene or two of moderate tension. Otherwise, there is not a lot to like in this film, and that’s before the ending that feels like an unearned, unmotivated f-you to these characters, and the time we spent with them.
