By Geno McGahee
Low budget horror films are typically reflections of big box office hits. When THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT became a hit, we were treated or cursed with countless tributes and rip offs of it. SAW sent the low budget horror into a new direction and now we get PARANORMAL ACTIVITY influenced flicks and that is what we have with COLD CREEPY FEELING.
COLD CREEPY FEELNG concerns a couple, Chloe (Lisa Younger) and Jason (Jared Vandenberg) and their troubled financial times. Chloe is a struggling actress that is currently waitressing and not entirely happy with it. Jason is a writer that is waiting for his break. Chloe wants to leave but Jason insists on sticking it out and making their way, and they get some very good news that makes them stay. They get a house.
OK, I was confused by this. They are complaining about financial troubles, but they live in an awesome apartment/condo, and then move to a house with a huge amount of land. Where are they getting the money? Whatever the case, the house has a history and they are going to walk right into it.
Before going to the house they stop in a ghost town and hang out there for a while, although it didn’t really support the story. It was sort of exciting to see that they were in an old ghost town…a great location, but they didn’t really use it. They walked around and just shot the shit. I get the feeling that half of this film was ad-libbed.
There is a sex scene where a tarantula bites Chloe and when she coupled that with a weird dream, she became convinced that the house is haunted. When Jason has an equally terrifying dream…sort of, he agrees and the two now want to get rid of the evil spirit. There wasn’t much build up to their certainty. They were convinced very easily. It was a scary spider.
When Sheriff Canterbury (Dennis Woodruff) shows up, he was going to clear things up…I thought. Although he shed some light, the acting of Woodruff was so incredibly bad that it was difficult to really get into what he was saying. He learned his lines and got them out as quickly and with as little inflection as he could.
Jason and Chloe spend a lot of time at bars and talking a lot about nothing. It is difficult to get through at times because the conversations seem so random and when Chloe mentions her favorite group, a pretty bad plug for a band that is advertised in the intro, I cringed.
There’s a spiritualist called in and some more of the story is revealed, and then all hell breaks loose, leading to the conclusion of the film.
COLD CREEPY FEELING is written and directed by Keith Kurlander and although I thought the movie needed a great deal of work, it wasn’t all bad. It was shot well, but the story was lacking. There just wasn’t enough information and the ad-libbing was killing it. After seeing the outstanding cover art for the DVD, I was really excited, but it is misleading. Kurlander’s effort is influenced by PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, but he does put a unique spin, mixing “found footage” within a movie. There are some promising things but, as a whole, COLD CREEPY FEELING did not accomplish what Kurlander had probably hoped for. With better actors and a more focused effort and storyline, he will probably have a very good movie, but this is not the one.
Scared Stiff Rating: 4/10. Shot well but story not that well developed.
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