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Eban's Viewing Log

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  • 20-06-2010 4:02pm
    #1
    Eban Callgary
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1 ✭


    Big fan of the genre, myself, so I thought I'd jump in on this viewing log thing. Just as a sort of a background on my taste in horror films...

    * I like the 'Halloween' films, with the exception of 'Resurrection' (which was an abomination) and Rob Zombie's 'Halloween II', which was equally crap. As much as the sixth film is hated, I don't really mind it that much. My favourite of the sequels to the original would be 4, and H20, and I think Rob Zombie's remake was actually pretty good.

    * I enjoyed the original 'Friday the 13th', but don't really care for its sequels. The only one I thought was halfway decent would've been "Part VI: Jason Lives." I'm not into the slasher subgenre where "badly-written teen characters get offed by killer." Does nothing for me. You need protagonists you can get behind.

    * I like the 'Scream' trilogy, and even some of the films that followed it in the late '90s, like 'I Know What You Did Last Summer', and 'Urban Legend.'

    * Typically, I'm not into zombie films, though I did like '28 Days Later' and '28 Weeks Later.'

    * I love the recent wave of French horror films, like 'Haute Tension' (Switchblade Romance), 'Inside', and 'Frontiers.' I don't mind "J-horror", but a lot of the films I've seen have been too similar to each other.

    * I enjoy some of the "classics" of the genre, like 'Halloween', 'Nightmare on Elm Street', 'The Omen', 'The Wicker Man' et al, and don't necessarily have anything against remakes, though I think it's kinda lazy that no one can come up with original ideas anymore. Some remakes can be a vast improvement on the original (like 'My Bloody Valentine' and 'Last House on the Left'), while others have been decent ('Halloween', 'Nightmare on Elm Street'), pointless ('The Omen') or just downright poor ('The Wicker Man'.)

    Anyway, on with the Log...

    FRITT VILT ("COLD PREY")

    Norwegian slasher film from the mid-to-late 2000s. A really, really great example of how a slasher film can be done intelligently, and with an emphasis on logic and character development.

    The story concerns five friends who are travelling up into the mountains to do some off-piste skiing during the Winter. One of them fractures his leg in an accident, and the five are forced to seek shelter in a seemingly abandoned ski lodge until the morning. As they soon discover, though, they are not alone...

    This may sound like the plot to at least half a dozen different films, but where 'Cold Prey' excels is in creating a very strong, well-written core group of characters, and devising a plot whereby these characters make rational decisions based on common sense, as opposed to the general "wandering off alone into the dark" crap that most films lazily adhere to.

    The atmosphere is fantastic, utilising the cold, icy Norwegian landscape perfectly, and there's bucketloads of suspense. The killer has a great 'look' as well-- quite creepy. It's not an especially gory film, but it doesn't need to be. It's a character-driven piece, and the film is all the better for it.

    Definitely recommended. (Most places have it tagged together with its sequel 'Cold Prey: Resurrection', which is also decent enough, but it doesn't better the original.)


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