I gave COLD PREY 2 a quiet nod in a past article titled 10 Examples Of a Pulse In The Modern Slasher after fully acknowledging it‘s predecessor in my primary list. But last night I opted to give COLD PREY 2 another go-round. So, Heineken free and of sound mind I popped CP2 in the DVD player and prepped for a nice refresher.
Well, nice refresher isn’t even a sufficient description. It’s more like a slap in the face followed by a guttural voice echoing throughout my living room ’where were you the first time you watched this flick? No stranger to Heineken that night eh?!’
The picture is absolutely brilliant! Jannicke (Ingrid Bolse Berdal) is found freezing – pick axe in hand – in the Norwegian mountains. She’s taken to a local hospital where she tells authorities of the horrific incidents that occurred (in COLD PREY), and reveals the location of her deceased friends and the lunatic snow monster who killed them. Sure enough, deputies head in the indicated direction and discover a load of frozen bodies. Bodies (killer in tow) which they take back to the same hospital housing Jannicke.
While Jannicke attempts to rest and deal with the tragedy she’s just narrowly survived, the bodies lie in the hospital’s morgue where they’re apprehensively being attended to. Jannicke seems to be on the slow path to recovery, but a stiff stirs in the morgue, and it’s not one of her friends. You guessed it, our built-like-a-house fur clad mad man isn’t quite as dead as initially perceived, and Jannicke’s bleak plight gets a (literal, thanks to an unwise physician) jump start all over again.
Chaos immediately ensues. Orderlies, docs, cops and anyone who happens to be in the wrong hospital at the wrong time meet the reaper – and he’s big and vicious. A few cool death scenes illuminate our antagonists bloody spree, but nobody gets it quite like that genius who decided to revive this beast; it’s a death scene to remember, and rewind – more than once J. But disposing of inexperienced victims is one thing, dealing with the obviously resistant Jannicke is a whole different puzzle. And it’s going to take more than brute force to solve it.
I believe I mentioned my fondness of Berdal in my Pulse article, but I’m going to reiterate; this woman is head and shoulders above and beyond all prospective scream queens. She’s got the moxy, she’s got the girl next door looks, the heart of a gladiator and the brain of the ultimate ‘survivor girl’. In a nutshell, she’s the best thing to hit the big screen since Jamie Lee Curtis. And the comparison is interesting, given the similarities between COLD PREY 2 and the 1981 fan favorite HALLOWEEN II.
In HALLOWEEN II we see Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) rescued after a near fatal encounter with Michael Myers. She’s taken to a local hospital, where Myers follows and commences torturing and killing hospital employees en route to Strode herself. Strode of course survives, and with the help of the good doctor Loomis (Donald Pleasance) put what seems to be an end to Michael. In COLD PREY 2, all of those things happen, right down to the doc’s assistance (in COLD PREY‘s instance the doctor is a female nurse by the name of Camilla – portrayed by Marthe Snorresdotter Rovik, who does a wonderful job) . With the exception of the finales, these two films run parallel. Hell, you could almost call COLD PREY 2 a HALLOWEEN II remake. And don’t take that as an insult to the movie, because if this was a remake, it would be hands down the best remake I’ve seen in years.
The cinematography is excellent, there are some camera angles that scream HALLOWEEN II, yet maintain their chilling effectiveness. The lighting is perfectly executed, and although we’ve already gotten more than a good look at our villain in COLD PREY, director Mats Stenberg keeps a lot of the villain, and the action in low lighting, adding to the uncomfortable realism the film carries (and conjuring memories of other classic slasher fare to exercise similar lighting techniques such as Sean Cunningham‘s original FRIDAY THE 13TH and Bob Clark‘s original BLACK CHRISTMAS). Adding to the greatness, and the kinship to HALLOWEEN II is the score; composed by Magnus Beite, the sound is simply creepy, perfectly timed and most significant, memorable.
So there you have it; I’ve got a new on-screen crush, and the masses have a new horror franchise fit to duel with the best of them. Whether or not we’ll see a COLD PREY 3 (it doesn’t seem likely given the film’s conclusion) or not remains to be seen. It doesn’t really matter one way or another to be honest, as it is, we’ve got two scintillating films that will (in my mind) never be forgotten and always merit return (I’ve already seen it twice) viewings.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Cold Prey 2 acts as a perfect sequel, and captures all the terror that Rob Zombies Halloween 2 lacked.
