Movies
Cold Prey 2 (Fritt Vilt 2)
“Horror fans that enjoy a slasher purely based on the kill factor, this one tops most as it’s well shot, edited and packaged. It’s a top-notch production that’s burdened by a weak screenplay. Pop it in, talk with some friends, and watch the mayhem unfold in the background. It’s the only way to watch it.”
I’m a pretty big fan of Anchor Bay’s Norwegian slasher film Cold Prey (Fritt Vilt), a stylish, cold interpretation of our classic slasher franchises of the past 30 years. Learning that the producers were quickly going into production on a sequel (and planning a third film) only heightened by excitement, being that I’m always happy to have a new icon roaming around murdering folks. Like the first film, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of Cold Prey II.
Directed by Mats Stenberg, the film takes immediate cues from John Carpenter’s Halloween sequel where Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) wakes up in a hospital following the horrid events on Halloween. In Cold Prey II, Jannicke (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal) wakes up in the hospital. All of her friends are dead… and so is the killer. The bodies are brought to the hospital, including our pickaxe-wielding madman. In an homage to Friday the 13th part 6, the murderer is resuscitated with a pair of defibrillators and is once again on a murderous rampage.
Stenberg delivers a beautifully shot sequel that could easily make a theatrical run here in the States (were it in English). But the problem with the film is that is incredibly generic and spends more time trying to emulate classic horror films that becoming a classic of its own. With no limitations, no MPAA to worry about, and a much more lenient set of producers, it’s unfortunate that Cold Prey II never quite pushes the envelope.
Sure, it’s a bloodbath and there are a few fun kills, but the in-between is so incredibly boring, and the characters are so one-dimensional. Even in Carpenter’s Halloween sequel the hospital attendants are fun and have some sort of characterization, in Cold Prey they’re just bodies to mutilate.
Even the story doesn’t attempt to do anything fun or clever. The dead killer is revived in same hospital as survivor from first film; he kills everyone before the two go head-to-head for an anticlimactic battle. We learn nothing more about either of them. It’s just boring, quite simply put.
Horror fans that enjoy a slasher purely based on the kill factor, this one tops most as it’s well shot, edited and packaged. It’s a top-notch production that’s burdened by a weak screenplay. Pop it in, talk with some friends, and watch the mayhem unfold in the background. It’s the only way to watch it.
After pulling in $28 million at the worldwide box office this month, director (and star) Dev Patel’s critically acclaimed action-thriller Monkey Man is now available to watch at home.
You can rent Monkey Man for $19.99 or digitally purchase the film for $24.99!
Monkey Man is currently 88% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with Bloody Disgusting’s head critic Meagan Navarro awarding the film 4.5/5 stars in her review out of SXSW back in March.
Meagan raves, “While the violence onscreen is palpable and painful, it’s not just the exquisite fight choreography and thrilling action set pieces that set Monkey Man apart but also its political consciousness, unique narrative structure, and myth-making scale.”
“While Monkey Man pays tribute to all of the action genre’s greats, from the Indonesian action classics to Korean revenge cinema and even a John Wick joke or two, Dev Patel’s cultural spin and unique narrative structure leave behind all influences in the dust for new terrain,” Meagan’s review continues.
She adds, “Monkey Man presents Dev Patel as a new action hero, a tenacious underdog with a penetrating stare who bites, bludgeons, and stabs his way through bodies to gloriously bloody excess. More excitingly, the film introduces Patel as a strong visionary right out of the gate.”
Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, Monkey Man stars Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
Monkey Man is produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions.
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