Scarecrow-88
"This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?"I thought about this old drug warning commercial as I watched this film.Veteran television actor, Brian McNamara, goes behind the camera for this chiller, which(..without profanity)would be perfect fodder for Lifetime Movie Network. It feels, looks, and sounds like material that will wind up on such a channel as it is a very "television movie" type of film. Dead of Winter concerns a young college couple planning to move into an apartment together, heading there after a New Years Party where a joker both know, slips LSD in their drink(..they also snort some junk cut by a razor). Both begin to see hallucinogenic images and hear imaginary voices, which could result in tragedy as Kevin and Tiffany leave their SUV after believing they had crashed it in the woods(..brought on by Kevin who thinks he saw a man in the back seat), getting lost, looking for his apartment. Before going off the deep end entirely, they contact emergency dispatch at the sheriff's office, asking for help, complaining of being lost. So as Kevin and Tiffany run around in the woods, and through abandoned buildings, seeing and hearing things that aren't there, the sheriff, Carl Nasland(Brian McNamara), his emergency dispatch telephone operator, Nancy Caulderbank(Ella Joyce), and deputy Dani Moriarty(Lindsay Thompson)attempt to find them. The key to what ails those trying to find their whereabouts is the fact that Kevin and Tiffany are so out-of-sorts any chance of reaching their cell phone signal is ruined because they keep hanging up. Al Santos, as Kevin, summons Jack Torrence, in a rather embarrassing performance. He devolves into a psychotic, while Tiffany herself loses grip on reality. The peril soon shifts from Tiffany, it seems, to Dani, who, despite Carl's warnings to wait until she has back-up, goes in after the kids, claiming that she knows the woods quite well. Sandra McCoy, as Tiffany, is for much of time, with Kevin, a nervous, indecisive young woman who seems to want to please him, despite reservations..we see early on that there are "faults" in Kevin's character, how he leads her into a party she's uncomfortable with, eventually partaking in smack and drink(..one shot really, but it is enough). Director McNamara employs various methods to explain just how messed up our leads are, with images distorted and misshapen, loud score, and heavily using sound effects, such as voices whispering(..in Kevin's case, he answers the cell phone and hears Tiffany's voice when it's Nancy on the other end of the line), animal growls(..this is what Tiffany experiences), and noises. Kevin and Tiffany often see people, but McNamara never establishes human features, just shadowy figures never quite in frame. I think this is an ambitious film for McNamara, who seems interested in scaring you, but I found it rather average, to be honest. The leads spend most of the screen time constantly moving. A problem, I think, that ails this movie is the limited time we have with Kevin and Tiffany before their terror, before they come apart at the seams. Practically the entire running time, besides those scenes outside the godforsaken woods, has the two in some state of psychological duress. If you like Lifetime thrillers, you might enjoy this one. The attempt at a twist at the end I thought fell flat and wasn't needed really. The dreaded snow plow only factors in one major scene as it "chases after" Kevin.
Kashmirgrey
Every once in a while, well these days more often than not, there comes along a flick so bad that after struggling through it, I feel compelled to sit down here and warn people against it. Dead of Winter aka Lost Signal is such a flick. It is so bad on so many levels that it seems a crime to invest in its 104 minutes. Wretchedly ridiculous, I found myself watching the clock with my finger hovering over the fast forward button like it was the trigger and the remote was some gun to end my suffering, my eyes glazed over frostbitten by boredom.Kevin (Al Santos) and Tiffany (Sandra McCoy) are a young couple making the foolish plunge to move in together. On a New Year's Eve, as if to christen the event, Kevin talks Tiffany into snorting some meth followed by a shot of liqueur. When Kevin catches his pusher making moves on Tiff, he and Tiff leave the party abruptly. Before long, it becomes evident that the liqueur was laced with a hallucinogen of some sort and Kevin and Tiff begin to trip out in the woods suspecting someone is after them to do some harm.Sounds intriguing enough, doesn't it? Well, don't be seduced to the lousy side with this one. Right from the start, you cannot help but despise Kevin. He's rude to Tiff's father. He's a piece of garbage for pushing meth, of all drugs, on his girlfriend, and he is the most pathetic Jack Nicholson wanna-be to ever violate celluloid. He even takes off running from perceived danger leaving his lady far behind in the freezing snow.Dead of Winter, like so many B-horror releases in recent years, feels like some failed film school project. It's just a dumb movie that insults the viewer's intelligence by taking itself seriously. It was just so stupid!
dschmeding
"Lost Signal" is a nice little movie taking the basic premises of ordinary slasher movies (that is a disoriented couple chased through the woods, hiding in abandoned cabin and seeing strange persons suddenly appearing in their backseat, before windows etc.). What is different is that the movie is very slow and in reality just the hallucinations the two have after someone slipped them LSD in their drinks on a new years eve party.Most of the movie plays with the couple stumbling through the icy woods after leaving their car behind when they think someone lurks in their backseat. From here everything is going downward from trying not to freeze to death to seriously tripping out in the end (that is paying its homage to "Shining" pretty obviously). The only piece of sanity is the 9/11 operator that is regularly talking to them on their cellphone and trying to trace their position between losing their signal and trying to decipher their inconsistent stories.Sure the movie is slow and has its lengths but honestly it kept me interested. Also the acting and cinematography was OK, so I don't get the negative comments on the movie that basically rip off on some continuity errors (And I give you that the scarf thing is a real bad and obvious continuity error) but that doesn't make this a 3star movie.Spoiler ahead .... for those who say the ending didn't make any sense I wonder why you didn't get it. The guy who slips them LSD clearly wants to get in Tiffanys pants and he uses 3 glasses of which one is marked and he drinks of it. This means he drugged both, so Tiffanys actions are clear and since she hears strange voices on the phone she is obviously high as her boyfriend.The story is pretty simple... drugs are bad and the montage shows very clear the many sufferings this evening placed on many including nice clean Tiffany who has to live with what she has done now on top of her boyfriend being dead.Considering this is based on a true story I like it even more and give it a 9 just to raise the bar for this interesting movie yet it sure has some flaws. If I'd had to choose about a horror/thriller with drug themes I'd prefer this one over "Shrooms" for sure.
