Dead of Winter

In terms of camera work, lighting, pace and direction in general, this is a fine piece of film-making. Penn knows all the bells and whistles as usual and Mary Steenburgen is quite amazing in her roles. I'm put off as I am so often by the many critics who look to film for verisimilitude (the "if it couldn't or wouldn't ordinarily happen in real life" brigade) that sets us so far behind our European counterparts. The film has a remarkable sense of entrapment and claustrophobia in the dead of winter in the middle of nowhere. As far as whether the events really could happen like that, I suppose I was more interested in the style, craftsmanship and general concept than of probabilities or even possibilities. The camera work and rhythm at the end of the film are magnificent. As for the "damsel in distress" nonsense, how many thousands of movies fall into that genre anyway? Are they all uniformly bad because they use a successful formula? This is the kind of movie where it's fun to sit back and enjoy the fireworks without bothering about split infinitives and the like.

Curtis Stotlar

Once upon a time (1945 to be exact) there was a B-film from Columbia called MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS starring Nina Foch, Dame May Witty and George Macready. It caused quite a stir even though it played the lower half of double bills and lasted a mere 65 minutes.

DEAD OF WINTER is rather transparent in borrowing from MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS (the heroine's name is Julie Rose, for example), and it has taken the original material, expanded it with some clever additional plot lines, taken the Cornwall atmosphere and transported it to wintry New England for a weather-beaten effect, and turned out a smart little thriller that will give you plenty of winter chills no matter what the temperature is outside.

It's another one of those tales where nothing is what it seems. A pretty young actress (MARY STEENBURGEN) is a down on her luck gal who accepts the offer of a film test from a producer (RODDY McDOWALL) who invites her to his secluded mansion where the test will take place. Sure, it's an unbelievable plot contrivance, but that's part of the fun. Nothing is to be taken too seriously from this point on.

When a series of rather unpleasant incidents take place, the woman realizes she is in a trap, but neither she nor the audience understands why she is there and what the purpose is of keeping her prisoner.

STEENBURGEN is excellent as the frightened woman (who should have had more common sense than accepting such an offer), and McDOWALL's polite cat-and-mouse game with her is fascinating as it unfolds. It's a creepy film, filled with authentically wintry atmosphere and it builds toward a surprising and violent climax.

Under Arthur Penn's direction, this expanded version of the B-film is every bit as cleverly plotted and written, no matter what some of the other commentators here have said. It's an atmospheric mystery that's guaranteed to give you some satisfying wintry chills--and then some.

In New York, the unemployed actress Katie McGovern (Mary Steenburgen) is invited to an audition to replace the actress Julie Rose that had a nervous breakdown in the middle of a filmmaking. She gets the job and travels with Mr. Murray (Roddy McDowell) to a remote manor upstate to meet the producer Dr. Joseph Lewis (Jan Rubes) that prepares footage with a test to be sent to the director. She is lodged in the mansion but when Katie sees her driving license burning in the fireplace, she finds that all her documents and credit cards are missing from her wallet and the telephone line is actually cut off the wall. Soon she finds that she was lured by the two men and is trapped in the house in a blackmail scheme.

"Dead of Winter" is a great suspense in one of the best performances of Mary Steenburgen in a triple role. Despite a couple of bad reviews, the theatrical and claustrophobic dark story of murder, greedy, blackmail and a stiletto is one of the best thrillers of the 80's. The few external locations are awesome and unfortunately the VHS does not highlight the cinematography. This is the fourth or fifth time that I watch this film and I still like it. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Morte no Inferno" ("Death in the Hell")

Note: On 23 January 2021, I saw this film again.

I didn't know what to except, reviews didn't give a clue what I'm going to watch.

Well first of all, big minus for the beginning, somewhere in 10 minutes or so you get the idea of whole movie. Don't get me wrong, this was very interesting and very well acted and all, nicely put together, and the ending was little twist that saved a lot.

Few parts doesn't make any sense in the movie but that didn't bother me. It was lovely to watch the whole movie with huge interest for the ending.

Truly worth of watch if you can handle thrillers and 80's style doesn't bother you.

And for the last words, this was pretty original for a thriller.. legendary maybe. Now I got lost in nostalgic, enjoy!

The critics for this movie in the local newspaper and also on IMDB said this movie is a give away thriller. I totally disagree. It may be true that it takes too much time before we are confronted with the new personage Steenburgen has to play, but overall this is a nice Mousetrap. The actors are very well casted on I was sometimes surprised with the plot twists. Music helps keeping up an eerie atmosphere. Don't watch this movie if you're alone at night