So Let’s Check This Place Out

Got to love those people that do the write up on the back of DVD’s. For Cold Prey it says that, “If you think this is going to be the usual ‘trapped teens stalked by a maniac’ movie, you’re dead wrong.” The finishes off the blurb by quoting Arrow in the Head that says, “If you enjoyed the original Friday the 13th and Halloween, you’re going to love Cold Prey.” Two movies that created the “trapped teens stalked by a manic” genre.

First off, it should be noted that Cold Prey is actually Fritt Vilt and is from Norway and is spoken in all Norwegian (aside from the occasional English songs). Naturally reading and horror flicks do not mesh very well as you are reading what they are screaming but are distracted by the words you sometimes miss what they are actually screaming at.

Despite what the back cover would have you to believe the movie is about a bunch of teens being stalked by a maniac (of whom it is pretty easy to figure out within the first five minutes). The one thing that differs is that they are not stuck in a warm climate conducive to fornicating but instead takes place in an abandoned cabin resort. The kids are stuck there as one of them has a snowboarding accident and it is too far to drag them back in the impending snowstorm to their car and just happen to see the cabin just up ahead.

The injured friend makes for a hard dilemma of flight or fight when one of the five comes up missing. Even with all the reading, you can still sense the fear and claustrophobia that the snowboarders feel as someone in an oversized parka, ski goggles, and an ax hunting them down and manage to frightening and entertaining even as it goes through more than one horror clichés. And if you are grossed out by gore, you can still enjoy this movie as it doesn’t show much because it cares much more about the hunt than the kill, cleaning up the broken leg is as gruesome as onscreen gore as it gets in the movie. And being five character the maniac takes his time getting to each of them.

Cold Prey gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.