Cold and Dark is a movie based around a couple of English Detectives, one of whom (Mortimer Shade) has been taken over by a parasite known as The Grail. The two coppers see this as an opportunity to rid the country of some of it’s worse scum by taking the law into their own hands. Things get out of control however once Mortimer starts to kill off innocent people, this leaves his partner John Dark with a strong moral conundrum (not to mention a practical one) as he can no longer tolerate his partners behaviour. Question is what can he do about it?
Cold and Dark is an unusual movie, it’s not always easy to discern whats going on. It’s been written/filmed in a bleak, no-nonsense fashion, which Brits do pretty well. The acting quality helps to elevate things a lot. Luke Goss and Kevin Howarth are fine as the two central characters, pulling off the tension and dynamics of their characters well. All of the supporting cast are solid also. Particular note goes out to David Gant who performance of the kooky, somewhat over the edge superintendent is both suspenseful and funny simultaneously. All in all good stuff.
The SFX look pretty CGI like at times. Like the title image above the grail creature is not always created very realistically but the gore on the other hand, is done superbly. Loads of buckets of red stuff all over the place at times and some nasty death scenes at points as well… It’s a shame there wasn’t more of it quite frankly.
Even though Cold and Dark can be quite suspenseful at times, it’s not really that scary. It’s more of a menacing type horror with the odd bit of gore. There’s probably too much emphasis on character motivations and what not to be honest. Nothing more to say about it in this regard really.
So would i recommend it? Well it’s OK if your bored or you fancy watching a half decent Brit horror. Although there are a lot better flicks out there to be watching. So yes i will recommend it, but just beware the said story issue and the CGI-ness at times. If you can deal with that then you should enjoy it, to some extent.
Movie Details
Director: Andrew Goth
Writer: Joanne Ray
ctors: Luke Goss, Matt Lucas, Caroline Ball, Kevin Howarth
elease Year: 2005