#31. "Cold Prey" (2006, Uthang)
By Eivind Langdal
23rd December 2009

And so the time has come to finally review a horror film from Norway, the greatest of all the world’s nations (to understate slightly). I guess you could expect me to be biased, but then you don’t know me. You see, I am what every journalist wishes to be: completely objective and never affected by anything when it comes to my writing… or, maybe not. Still, the opinion I will give on Cold Prey, the first slasher ever produced on Norwegian soil, should not affected by its shooting location.

I saw the film for the first time when it was released in cinemas in 2006. I remember quite vividly what I thought of it: bat-shit scary, but sadly equipped with the kind of clichés that Scream made fun over a decade ago. Ironically, when I caught it again on TV recently, I didn’t find it to be as scary, but I didn’t find the clichés to be as apparent either. Now, would you look at that?

Five young adults (three men, two females) are on a snowboard-trip in the mountains. However, halfway down the slopes, one of them trips on a steep ledge, and his leg breaks. His condition hinders him in being carried to the car (because it is too far away), and all hope seems to be gone. That is, of course, until the group discovers an abandoned building not far in the distance. When they eventually make it there, they learn that it used to be a hotel (documents tell them that it was closed down in the 1970s).

It quickly becomes dark, and so the group decides to spend the night there. However, before they go to sleep, they explore their new permanent home, which turns out to be quite the creepy place. The art design is very clever, as it never strays from the realistic, and always finds simplistic ways to induce tension. If the hotel is scary, it’s simply because buildings that have been abandoned for several decades tend to be scary, no matter what. Mothers, take notice and use that point to get your kids to clean their rooms.

Things really get scary, though, when the group finds items in the hotel’s “lost and found” section that are too modern to have been left there in the 1970s, which can only mean two thing: either Marty McFly have decided to prank with Norwegians (which is unlikely, seeing as no one messes with us), or someone has been there between the 1970s and now. And hey, wouldn’t you know, it’s a creepy guy who has no intention of letting the characters get out alive.

It’s a good thing the movie is as tense as it is, because it is mostly so clichéd that, at times, it becomes irritating. Of course one characters turns on loud music exactly in the moment when another character is being hacked to pieces! Of course the entire group must belong to the standard card-board character types (the promiscuous one, the stupid one, the funny one, the bland one, the emotionally strong one)! Of course one of them thinks it’s a good idea to try and escape alone!

Still, the film is far from what you’d call bad. Its production values are excellent, and the cast almost makes us forget how thinly written their characters are. Despite never being particularly creative, it is always engaging to the last minute. Lastly, a few references to “The Shining” is rarely a bad thing (although one of them gets lost in translation). While it could never be considered a landmark in international waters as far as horror films go, Cold Prey may (hopefully) someday stand as the first in a long line of great Norwegian horror films. Maybe that is wishful thinking, but never say never.