Plot Synopsis: Four friends get stranded at an old house with a serial killer during a snowstorm.
Matt Stetler
The Secret Service are instructed to take a bullet for the President should that situation ever arise. Well, let it never be said that I don’t do anything nice for anyone, because I just took a cinematic bullet to the face for you people. That bullet’s name is Blood Runs Cold.
What a steaming pile of crap this one was. Take your typical killer chasing down a girl in the woods/house she’s alone in, make every character completely idiotic, stretch out a 25 minute story into 77 minutes and be sure to give zero resolution when it’s all said and done and you pretty much have Blood Runs Cold. There is such little to like here. Terrible acting, terrible direction, terrible continuity…I could go on and on. You’re probably thinking to yourself though, with a short running time, the chaos starts early and runs the length the film, right? WRONG. Outside of a brief pre-credit moment, you will sit through thirty minutes of scene chewing chatter between a mix of unlikeable characters. Seriously, these people are so poorly defined and unlikeable, you’ll be rooting for the killer. Not because he’s cool mind you, but because his arrival signals that the end of the film is near. By the way, here’s a fun game to play while you watch. Try to figure out if the actors are Europeans trying to act American or just awful European actors. The answer? Who cares.
The biggest horror in all of this is that director Sonny Laguna made another movie after this. This is clearly a guy who has money and thinks he can make movies. The amount of mind numbingly stupid moments in this film will make you want to question everything and anything. Why does a dive bar, that serves beer in clear plastic cups, have elegant stem ware to serve their high quality wine in? Why do all the men go outside of the house, that has a bathroom, to pee? Why is it colder in the house then it is outside? Why is a door, that isn’t locked, need to be chopped down with an axe? I’m not making any of that up, all of this happens in Blood Runs Cold.
I can’t help but think how much better this would have worked as a short film. Just start right when the killer first starts attacking. There’s barely any backstory to begin with, so get rid of it all together and just start your film with the first kill. Seriously, if you really feel the need to suffer through this, skip ahead to the 35 minute mark and try to enjoy. Or, watch anything else. Like, absolutely anything else in your queue. It may not be better, but it can’t be any worse.
Why you should put this in your queue? Don’t.
Why you shouldn’t put this in your queue? A simple idea made simpler by poor acting and even worse directing. This is one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a long time. This makes Chernobyl Diaries look like a freaking masterpiece…it’s that bad.
Justin Oberholtzer
“Blood Runs Cold” is as generic of a slasher as you can get. Take a couple of vain, pretty people, pair them up with a likable protagonist or two and send a killer after them. Isolate them in one location, this time being an old house, which prevents them from being saved. Dump a couple of gallons of fake blood into the mix and you’ve got yourself a slasher. Sonny Laguna (who co-wrote with David Liljeblad & Tommy Wiklund, as well as directed) follows this formula to a tee. This is not a good thing.
I consider myself a connoisseur of slasher films. The story is simple and it can be entertaining. So why am I being so harsh on “Blood Runs Cold”? The reason is there’s nothing to set this one apart. No quirky, memorable character; no jaw-dropping deaths; no surprising twist. There’s nothing done here that you haven’t seen in a dozen other, better horror films.
Even the setting has grown stale. There’s been a gamut of horror films set during a snowstorm lately that they’re beginning to run together. I’ve only seen a few and I’ve already grown tired of them. Had Sonny developed atmosphere out of the setting, I would’ve been more forgiving. He doesn’t get a single use out of it. Even the expected lost connection trope isn’t used. He just makes the characters so stupid that they don’t even fathom the idea of calling the police.
No amount of gore can help “Blood Runs Cold”. Even the occasional gruesome scenario (one in particular involving someone’s foot) can’t elevate this. It’s not even that the film is badly made. It’s competently shot and occasionally has some pretty scenery. It’s that nothing in this is notable. Hell, I began to forget what occurred earlier in the film as the end drew near. Even a generic slasher has to sustain my attention span throughout it’s runtime.
Why Should You Put This In Your Queue? There’s enough gore to satisfy gorehounds. The winter setting can be unique if you haven’t succumb to the recent gamut of them. It’s only seventy-seven minutes.
Why Shouldn’t You Put This In Your Queue? It’s way too generic and forgettable. None of the characters are interesting and the deaths, the main selling point, aren’t that thrilling. They also don’t get much use out of the snowy setting.