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Blood Runs Cold begins with a man lying face down in the snow, seemingly dead at first, but instead he’s bleeding profusely from wounds which we quickly gather were caused by the axe being held by another man nearby and, on spotting his victim sitting upright, he’s heading back…
Cut to Winona (Hanna Oldenburg), a successful artist who needs a break from her stressful life and when looking for a retreat, her manager rents her a house which could do with some renovation, particulary since the only one to greet her on her arrival, is a rat scuttling away. Given the type of film we’ve seen this will be prior to the opening credits, you know that when she overhears a regular banging noise coming from behind the closed door of another room, that it’ll be nothing more than an open window doing what they do when the wind comes calling.
In what appears to be one of those backwater towns with absolutely nothing to do, she heads to the only bar and bumps into her ex-boyfriend Rick (Patrick Saxe), his friend Carl (Andreas Rylander) and Carl’s girlfriend Liz (Elin Hugoson) and it’s all back to Winona’s for a late-night tipple.
It doesn’t take much to figure out that this film is going to end up as one of those “who’ll be the last person to survive” slasher thriller, as strange things start happening, such as Winona’s 4×4 being sabotaged, leaving them all stranded against a harsh winter.
Knowing that this is a low-budget film means you can rather enjoy it in a bit of a kitsch way, so that when someone gets stabbed – by whoever’s going round being the bad guy – and their blood spurts in high volumes very quickly, it’s more amusing than anything else. Same goes for a continuity mishap when one character is just looking scared one moment, but the next time you see their face, their eyes have been clearly crying for some time and snot’s dripping out of their nose.
Short but sweet, Blood Runs Cold isn’t brilliant but it’s not totally without merit. There are a few cool shock moments as the good guys and girls are being chased.
Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, as per the cinema ratio, the DVD print is a little soft and conveys that you’re watching a low budget, although given that, according to the Internet Movie Database, the budget was only $5,000, that’s understandable. The director clearly has a great visual flair given the composition of the majority of shots in the film, so I’d be intrigued to see what he could do with a bigger budget and an original storyline.
The sound is in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is okay for atmosphere, but there are times when it feels like it hasn’t been mixed properly and that the sound isn’t exactly reflecting the placement of things onscreen.
There’s only one extra, a brief Behind the scenes (8:37) piece showing work-in-prgress and on-set filming taking place. It’s worth a look once, but isn’t something you’ll rush to go back to. Such a shame there’s no more supplementals on this disc.
The menu is static and silent. There are no subtitles which is very annoying, especially early on when Winona’s taking a call on her phone and it’s not easy to hear the caller on the line. Also, like a lot of Blu-rays and DVDs, the chaptering is lacking with just 12 over the 75-minute running time.
Blood Runs Cold is out on DVD from October 3rd.
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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
4 7 6 1 |
| OVERALL | 5 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 74 minutes
Year: 2011
Cat no: CFDV032
Released: October 2011
Chapters: 12
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English
Subtitles: None
Widescreen: 2.35:1
Disc Format: DVD9
Director: Sonny Laguna
Producers: David Liljeblad and Tommy Wiklund
Screenplay: Sonny Laguna, David Liljeblad and Tommy Wiklund
Music: Samir El Alaoui
Cast:
Winona: Hanna Oldenburg
Richard: Patrick Saxe
Carl: Andreas Rylander
Liz: Elin Hugoson
James: Ralf Beck
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.