‘Cold Moon’ Review
Stars: Josh Stewart, Christopher Lloyd, Robbie Kay, Candy Clark, Frank Whaley, Tommy Wiseau, Madison Wolfe, Laura Cayouette | Written and Directed by Griff Furst
In a sleepy southern town, the Larkin family suffers a terrible tragedy. Now the Larkin’s are about to endure another: Traffic lights blink an eerie warning, a ghostly visage prowls in the streets, and graves erupt from the local cemetery in an implacable march of terror . . . And beneath the murky surface of the river, a shifting, almost human shape slowly takes form to seek a terrible vengeance.
At first glance Cold Moon looks like most other by the numbers horror/thrillers, with a cast of people you will recognize straight away but take a while to place where from. However give it a minute because this movie has some really stellar performances from the core cast which – considering the concept is just bonkers enough to take you out of it completely – I find this to be nothing short of incredible.
Way more thriller than horror, there are still some solid as hell jump scares but one of the defining points in a horror is that we don’t find out who the man in the mask is till the last quarter of the movie. In Cold Moon we know who the killer is early on and the film interestingly begins to focus on the rapid decline of our killers mind. Being haunted by the eerie ghosts of his victims, leading him to drink heavily, become careless and basically begin to lose his shit… Well that is where this movie cuts its teeth and showcases not only what our core cast can do but how effortlessly our writer/director can craft his tale.
Griff Furst has crafted a pretty eerie, good looking, atmospheric and clever movie from the original novel written by the late Michael McDowell, author of Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Not only that but he managed to perfectly cast his roles from top to bottom (in my eyes, of course). So lets touch on a couple of those people you know but may not place.
Josh Stewart from mostly everything (including the recent horror The Neighbour), most notably for me he was Bane’s main henchmen in The Dark Knight Rises. He is great in this flick, given a real chance to show us his range and I was pleased to see more of him. The “veteran” Frank Whaley (Ray Donovan, Under the Dome, Luke Cage) is also fantastic in this. Up and coming Robbie Kay from TV show Once Upon A Time puts in a pretty strong performance. Ladies and gentlemen… we are even treated to some Christopher Lloyd, Doc Brown-ing all over the place! Oh crap, I almost forgot we are given a Tommy Wiseau cameo that is a real treat… Listen closely for his one line “He’s tearing him apart”. Awww man, now I wanna watch The Room.
I recommend the hell out of Cold Moon, is it amazing? Not really… But its good, pretty clever fun, featuring great performances and is ultimately entertaining as hell. Still, this is a definite recommend.
Cold Moon is in theaters and VOD across the US from October 6th.
