Movies
Whoa, ‘Cold Skin’ is Actually Happening…With the Director of ‘Frontier(s)’
Flash back to 2009, 30 Days of Night and Hard Candy director David Slade was attached to helm the adaptation of the Antarctic island horror/psychological thriller Cold Skin, based on a best-selling Spanish novel of the same title.
Then, in 2011, Xavier Gens (The Divide, Hitman, Frontiere(s)) was attached to take the reigns from a screenplay by Carriers writers Alex and David Pastor.
After years in development hell, filming is officially underway, which means Cold Skin is actually, finally, truly happening!
Who stars? Ray Stevenson (“Dexter,” Punisher, Big Game, Thor, the Divergent franchise) and David Oakes (The Borgias, The White Queen), says Variety.
Based on a best-seller of the same title by Albert Sanchez Piñol whose adaptation rights were said to have been pursued in their day by Focus Europe and Filmax, Cold Skin begins with a young man approaching a remote island on the edge of the Antarctic Circle to relieve a weather observer who has been stationed there in solitude. But all he finds is a deranged castaway who has witnessed a horror he refuses to name.
Cold Skin co-stars Spain’s double-Goya nominee Aura Garrido (Stockholm, The Department of Time).
Two-time Academy Award winner Gil Parrondo serves as production designer: award-winning Ranchito (“Games of Thrones,” The Impossible) supplies VFX.
Principal photography will move to the Canary Islands later this month and then a further part of the shoot is planned for Iceland exteriors, said Babieka’s Denis Pedregosa.
Here’s the synopsis from a few years back:
“In this grim, H.G. Wellsian fable, an unnamed European of unspecified nationality is hired to spend an unspecified mid-20th-century year logging wind conditions on a tiny Antarctic island. Anticipating solitude, the bookish young man soon discovers that he has a neighbor–the pathologically reclusive Gruner–and that each night, the island is overrun by humanoid killer amphibians. He and brutish Gruner–who has tamed a “toad” of his own–join forces, killing monsters by night and fornicating with Gruner’s pet by day. Inspired by the creature’s ability to laugh and cry–to say nothing of her perky breasts, knack for housework and wordless submissiveness–the narrator begins to think of the cold-blooded creatures as human. When he tries to befriend them and their children, his efforts pacify the humanoids, but not Gruner; the hopeful idyll ends when the older man launches a last suicidal effort to exterminate the “monsters.” Gruner’s death plunges our hero into a rut of battle, drunkenness and bestiality so complete that when his replacement arrives, he has become as feral as Gruner was before him.”
It sounds very Lovecraftian, like The Fog meets Dagon…
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
You must be logged in to post a comment.