Our resident film reviewer is writer Harry Casey-Woodward who will be sharing his opinions on things he has watched…
Since the weather at the moment is rather grim, I’ve had a think about what handful of films mirror the British winter chill and would be horrific to be starring in, not just for the cold.
The Hateful Eight, 2016, cert 18, dir Quentin Tarantino
I haven’t seen The Revenant yet, otherwise by the sound of the conditions depicted it would surely get a place here. But the Hateful Eight is another western coinciding nicely with the British winter. Except it’s depicting a Wyoming winter so naturally the weather is a bit more extreme. As in, everything is smothered in snow and looks like a Christmas card, except the very opposite of Christmas cheer and goodwill happens in the film. I just feel sorry for that stagecoach driver stuck on top of his coach the whole time while his passengers are sheltered below him, and the guy forced to walk naked in the snow. Yes that does happen. All in all, this film does a great attempt at showing how cold the American west could get and just how desirable a pot of fresh hot coffee would have been.
The Shining, 1980, cert 18, dir Stanley Kubrick
I know most of the film’s action takes place indoors, but the ominous presence of winter just lurking outside is maintained throughout. Even at the beginning, the hotel manager is warning Jack Torrance how severe the winter can get, what damage it can cause to the hotel and what damage it caused to the mind of the last caretaker who, suffering allegedly from ‘cabin fever’, murdered his family. All the other staff members are hurrying to leave before the roads are snowed in. So while the Torrances are trying to have a relaxed, normal time (besides the ghosts, the kid’s powers of prophecy and daddy’s slide into psychosis), the raging winter outside is cutting down telephone wires, shutting down roads and generally making it difficult for the Torrances to escape or be rescued when things start going down the toilet. Plus Jack Torrance freezing to death outside looks a chilly way to go.
The Thing, 1982, cert 18, dir John Carpenter
For one thing, this film is set in Antarctica, the coldest and remotest place you can get. Not only that, but you’re stuck in a science base with a bunch of experts and one bearded alcoholic pilot played by Kurt Russell, so you could die of boredom as well as cold. Unfortunately, a shape-shifting alien is unleashed from the ice and starts taking over everyone like a parasite that’s really good at impressions. Cue some traumatic 80s prosthetics of human bodies tearing apart and sprouting new alien appendages, but at least the gushing bodily fluids that flood this film might keep you warm. Funnily enough, season one of X-Files did their own tribute/rip-off of this film in one episode about parasitic aliens set in an Antarctic science base, which looked equally cold.
Dead Snow, 2009, cert 18, dir Tommy Wirkola
Let’s bring some world cinema in. Of course, the term does suggest sophistication, not students getting slaughtered by Nazi zombies. Try telling that to HMV, however, whose ‘world cinema’ sections appear to be mostly stocked of all the nasty pulp foreign language films. Anyway, it does look pretty cold in this particular Norwegian snowbound shocker. The constant running away and the brain-bashing of undead fascists would keep you warm though, as would being soaked in the copious amounts of spilled blood from you and your friends. I thought the most unpleasantly cold-looking moments in the film were in the outdoor toilet next to the students’ wood cabin. How did two characters have sex in there? It’s bad enough with the zombies pulling you down the poop chute afterwards.
Die Another Day, 2002, cert 12, dir Lee Tamahori
Honestly I had a hard time thinking of things for this list, but this movie sure looks chilly, especially since the second half is set in some ice palace in the Arctic. They must have had some magical central heating system where the guests didn’t freeze but the palace didn’t melt around them. James Bond even managed to persuade Rosamund Pike to lose her clothes in some icy bedroom. There are many cold scenes throughout the Bond franchise (as in temperature not the acting). I haven’t seen Spectre yet but there is another Pierce Brosnan flick called The World is not Enough, the predecessor to Die Another Day, where Bond and Sophie Marceau lose some baddies in a ski chase but end up buried under an avalanche. Luckily Bond’s array of gadgets includes a bubble that pops up around them and shields them from the evil snow. This doesn’t stop Marceau from having a panic attack and Bond has to calm down the silly woman. At least he didn’t do it the Sean Connery way and slap her.