Cold and Dark

Oh my dear god, please people, before slating any other film please watch this one first, who in their right mind eats a banana in the bath and then tries to feed some of it to their dog?????? What parasite? what happened in the freezer?? This takes ages to get started and by then interest ebbs away to the point where you just end up staring at the screen blankly. I thought Luke Goss was absolutely brilliant in the TV version of Frankenstein but sadly he seemed to lack any gusto in this bag of dead goats, who-ever wrote this seriously needs to choose a different career path as screenplays are Definitely not their forte. In short this film is an absolute must for either insomniacs or amateur brain-washers.It's dreadful!!

A vicious, recently demonized cop (Kevin Howarth) rampages bloodily amok in Andrew Goth's not entirely harmonious admixture of splattery horror and gritty UK crime thriller. Notable points of interest include Clinty Squinty Good Guy cop Luke Goss's distractingly protuberant nipples, Kevin Howarth's splendidly spiffy leather jacket, plus a delightfully impish Matt Lucas, who appears to have giddily Twilight Zoned in from Garth Merenghi! Performances are generally credible, with amusing lapses into chucklesome goofiness. Pace is fairly lively, the stolid text is okay-ish, sporadically enlivened by a number of unintentional howlers. This mostly entertaining conflation of Baphomet and Bergerac is certainly not without interest to the more avid Brit-horror fans looking for a skewed alternative to yet another formulaic slice & dicer. For all its awkwardness, I still greatly enjoyed Cold & Dark's laudable attempts at grisly idiosyncrasy.

Two violent English cops fight crime until one of them is infected with some supernatural parasite that makes him crave the taste of human flesh. The violence continues, but in a slightly different way.

The first thing that struck me about this film is the use of a blue lens, which seems to be a new fad in horror movies. "Saw III" used a similar tint, and I know I've seen it a few other places, as well. While I like the mood the tint brings out, this technique is becoming too obvious for me and I hope the fad goes away in a year or two because it's just going to get old.

Horror fans who like gore will like this movie, or at least like the gore in this movie, because there's plenty of it. In one scene, a man is waiting at a glory hole to get a little sausage. Moments later, plenty of fluid comes through the hole, but not what he was expecting. Minutes later, another man is shoved through a wall right in front of a hysteric small child, his face mangled to all hell. The violence continues like this for most of the film.

By the way, I also enjoyed the glory hole scene for its use of a Rubik's cube, which I haven't seen used effectively in a movie since the 1985 Chuck Norris flop, "Code of Silence". (Yes, I found a way to reference Chuck Norris in a horror film review.)

I was a bit distracted by the English accents, which are fairly thick and the volume is not loud enough to help you make the words distinct. This is sort of like "Trainspotting", but I found this even less easy to adjust to. I almost would have welcomed some Americans dubbing voices over the top of the film, despite my dislike of dubbing.

The director (Andrew Goth?) knows how to film a scene and get right where he needs to be. Early on during a rooftop scene, he implements some dynamite overhead directing, as if from a helicopter or from Superman's point of view. It was very nice, and much more than you usually get from people you've never heard of. Another reviewer said that Goth, "displays a strong visual style and a good eye for interesting camera angles," which I think is a great way to say it.

The movie sadly suffered from a convoluted plot, where I asked myself "who are these characters?" a few times. Earlier people are already forgotten by the middle of the film, and you aren't really sure what the underlying plot actually is. If the first half is drug dealers who don't show up in the second half, and the second half is about a parasite that never shows up until 43 minutes into the film, where is the consistent story? Also, another reviewer called the movie "well-made but intensely boring" and I would not necessarily disagree. While I was not bored, the lack of connection to the movie made it more difficult to get into what should have been a breathtakingly beautiful work of art.

I also never even figured out who the two main characters were, which I think is a huge drawback. I know the cops are named Dark and Shade, rather than Dark and Cold as you would expect, but I did not know which was which throughout most of the first half. I am pretty sure no background on them was offered and we had no reason to give a fig about either one of them.

I would recommend this film to others, mostly because I would like to hear more opinions on it. I think with some minor tweaking this would have been a great movie, and I hate to dismiss it out of hand on a whim. I would give it a second viewing just to be more sure of my thoughts on the movie. It is not bad, but I'm not sure if I can say it's great. Until further examination, I leave this film with a slightly-above-average grade.

For the most part, as well as the fact that I'm very lazy, I'll just agree what most of the other negative reviews have said.

There was a few moments of good camera work and one or two effects scenes that worked OK. But that's enough of the positives.

My biggest problem with this film is Luke Goss's narration. What the hell? His accent when on-screen appears to be a blend of his normal one and Eton educated posh kid.

However, during the narration, it appears to change considerably and consistently. From what I can tell he is trying to sound American.

It just sounds like an embarrassing combination of Brooklyn cab driver and confused Welshman.

In short his accent, like the rest of this film, is awful.

It frustrates me that the UK has such potential when it comes to film making, yet every film we make tries so damn hard to appeal to the American market. This is a shame for both us and any actual American audience that would like to see authentic British films.

To be honest, I think people could film something better on a mobile phone.

The initial premise of a Gothic cop and horror movie hybrid is a pretty good idea and certainly prompted me to hire out the film!!!! However the film is badly hampered by wooden acting, especially in the case of the Police Chief who reminded me of Kenric and Moss from a Black Adder the Third episode and seemed to be unable to grasp the difference between screen acting and stage acting, the main one being that you don't need to scream your lines at the camera!!!! Carly Turnbull's performance at Albany was very flat and while acceptable in places seemed like she spent the majority of the film reading her lines of an autocue!!!! Having said that the two main leads did put in a pretty good effort with Kevin Howarth, who I think is criminally underrated, proving his worth yet again as a villain by contributing a very convincing and creepy performance showing his characters descent from maverick cop to homicidal monster. Luke Goss did his best and put in a comparatively good performance. Also Matt Lucas cameo is well acted proving he can play straight as well.

Another resounding floor in the film has to be the Americanisation element, with the Police acting like American cops dressing like American cops and doing all but speaking in American accents!!!! The attempt to dress Luke Goss as Vin Diesel is especially frustrating. Also the parasite is a blatant copy of the stomach burster from the Alien quadrilogy!!!! The director Andrew Goth does well all being considered and uses the camera angles and cutting to good effect but with all the gaping plot holes and wooden acting he was unable to turn it around but as they said in Wayne's World "You cant polish a turd".

All in all a good idea that went horribly wrong!!!!!