Cold Prey – Fritt Felt (2006)

Directed by: Roar Uthaug | 97 minutes | drama, horror | Actors: Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Rolf Kristian Larsen, Tomas Alf Larsen, Endre Martin Midtstigen, Viktoria Winge, Rune Melby, Erik Skjeggedal, Tonie Lunde, Hallvard Holmen

Nowadays, in many a horror film, the limbs and blood spatter fly around your ears, while every excuse is used to conjure up a naked tit somewhere. Not so the Norwegian ‘Cold Prey’, which makes its victims in a completely minimalistic way.

‘Cold Prey’ goes against the grain and should know nothing about soaring ‘body counts’ or dysfunctional nudity. Instead, what’s presented here is a film that almost seems to forget that since the 1970s, horror-loving audiences have been treated to one slasher after another, in which unsuspecting holidaymakers are cleaved in half by unrecognizable killers. No, loving themselves wonderfully stupid, the writers of ‘Cold Prey’ ignore all these films and present their film as if it were the introduction of a new genre. You would expect that a dull predictability would take over the film, but surprisingly enough ‘Cold Prey’, including all its clichés, works wonderfully well to evoke old-fashioned tension.

We cannot attribute this to the concept. Indeed, ‘Cold Prey’ is ‘just’ about a group of young people who are on their way to a skiing holiday. They reach their destination, but when one of them breaks a leg, they find themselves forced to seek shelter in a nearby hotel, unaware that this hotel has been a base for a maniacal murderer with childhood trauma for decades. It is indeed a story that has been told many times before and even a few times better.

Where one has to look for the success of the film is the direction of Roar Uthaug, who keeps his cast under control with an iron discipline. The everyday youngsters never lose their credibility and unlike many blockbusters, Uthaug does not tend to want to impress. He seems to sense very well that when one wants to tell a story like this it is essential for the viewer to be able to identify with the characters. That is also the reason that Uthaug does not shy away from building up his film very slowly. The first part of the film he spends all on getting his pawns ready and then the harder the blows when the action erupts.

In addition to the psychologically well-constructed scenes, Uthaug also manages to retain this eye for detail in the film’s stylization, especially when it comes to the use of color in the film. The interior of the hotel, with its dark walls and dirty corridors, contrasts gray with the snow-covered natural landscapes in which it is located. Once a place of relaxation and fun, the hotel now seems above all to be a place forgotten by the world. Moreover, the sepia colors in which the entire film is soaked gives the environment an air of suffocating helplessness. The editing is remarkably slow, so that the threat from the basement gradually becomes more and more tangible, even though the main characters are still in limbo during the first part of the film. The end result is a film that is a reminder of what the slasher genre should be. A film in which little seems to be happening on the surface, but where something is brewing under the skin of significance.