Review of Cold in July (2014) by Neil B — 13 Jun 2014

I had absolutely no expectations going into this, and my main question going into this was: "What is this movie going to try to be?" And I still don't know. And I just saw this movie. I mean, the obviously it's a thriller, but it's actually pretty bereft of thrills.

It has some odd humor injecting in several times but none of it works. The performances are pretty good for what they have to do, but the production value of everything is so poor that nothing really comes off like it should.

There are a couple of nighttime scenes that seem pretty grim, but the music throughout the movie is terrible and incredibly distracting. It's this awful cheesy synthesizer music that undercuts all possible tension; it's like something that you'd here in a parody.

The first half of the movie is really self-serious but the second half is campy as hell and just adds to the tonal confusion. If the movie is trying to be a simultaneous appreciation and respectful spoof of grindhouse movies, it certainly doesn't come off that way.

There aren't really plot twists as much as there is just random stuff happening that doesn't actually add up logically. Some stuff isn't really even resolved, even if it's what drives the plot.

I guess the real moral of the story here is to never hire Jeff Grace to score your films, because he'll make it seem like a cheap schlock-fest. 4.5/10, lame, two thumbs down, below average, etc.