Cold Skin

Cold Skin is quite the original unique little tale, but ultimately it fails to deliver on its promises.

It tells the story of a military intelligence man set to do a scientific study on a remote island for a year replacing an existing gentleman. There is nobody on the island bar one, a disgruntled insane from isolation man named Gruner. As night falls he learns that the island holds a terrible secret.

Arguably a "Creature feature" this horror stars the excellent British veteran Ray Stevenson and was made by French/Spanish studios. I'm very glad I came across it because despite its flaws it's quite remarkable, it was nice to find a movie this original and visually pleasing considering that it's not a mega budget film.

The concept is outstanding, the delivery however is very mixed. They manage to make it all look good and Stevenson is on form as usual however the writing is really messy and the film simply should have flowed better.

When the credits rolled I was saddened by the wasted potential here, on paper it had the makings of a fantastic feature but the end result here is something that loses steam at around the 2/3 mark and hits you with a very uninspired ending.

Well worth a watch simply to marvel over what it does have to offer but it's a fine example of a ball being dropped by all involved.

The Good:

Solid concept

Looks great

Ray Stevenson

The Bad:

Loses steam

Wasted potential

Weak finale

As an audience we feel lonely and fragile just like the main character. The movie begins as a horror but slowly turns more action orientated. Early action scenes are very good and unfortunately the get abit repetitive and aren't as good later on. I love all the question this film poses. Set in the back drop of WW1 it does't seem to have connection intill you peice it together. As there aren't many characters in the film you get to know them intimately. Character development is handled well. The CGI looks natural and effects are gratifying. This movie had me hooked and as a result I have ordered the novel it was based upon.

I was drawn to see this movie after reading a brief plot synopsis which had a clear Lovecraftian horror theme (et in the 20's an isolated lighthouse attacked by creatures from the sea). And though this wasn't exactly the movie I wanted it to be, I was satisfied with it. Firstly, this movie is extremely well-made and acted. The location is simply wonderful. I would've preferred the sea creatures to be more grotesque but that wasn't what they were aiming for. This film doesn't explain everything which leaves you thinking about it which works well in this case. I enjoyed too which leads the viewer to wonder just how long the lighthouse keeper had been there and who the original lighthouse keeper was. Not surprisingly, this movie is based on a rather popular foreign novel which received a bit of praise and attention which it apparently is quite faithful to.

The film is visually appealing, the acting is good and when it touches on philosophical issues here and there, it avoids being too hammy. The plot however is rather thin and has some holes. All in all, it could have been fleshed out more, together with the characters.

I didn't know what to expect from this movie when I sat down to watch it. Just before the start of the First World War, a young man (David Oakes) takes a job charting the weather on a remote island, only to discover it's not as 'uninhabited' as he first thought. Besides the location's only 'official' resident, a lighthouse keeper played by Ray Stevenson, every night the place is besieged by seemingly never-ending armies of fish people - and they're not the sweet Disney Little Mermaid kind either!

So, the two men must start a fight for their lives in order to survive not just the night, but an entire year before the next boat passes by and hopefully rescue them.

I really enjoyed this to begin with. There's a real feel for the isolation of the setting and the characters are believable in their actions - at the beginning. However, as other reviewers have pointed out, the audio is terrible in places and the conversations between the two - only - characters is almost impossible to make out. It's because of this I may well have missed out some explanations of various plot points, like why one fish person seems to be nice and Ray Stevenson is okay with her living alongside them when he simply wants to wipe the rest of them off the face of the planet.

The creature effects are good and it's nice to see not too much computer-generated effects, but the movie starts to drag in places, partly because there's only really two characters and there's not an awful lot for them to do, other than fighting off wave after wave of monsters.

By the time the film comes to an end you'll kind of have guessed how it's going to play out. There's no real shockers along the way. It's an okay sort of film that was effectively a good idea, but just kind of outstayed its welcome based on the little 'story' there was to tell here.