Great Film overall

good back-story, and good acting

Film Perfection

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

As other horror fans have noted, director Roar Uthaugs' "Cold Prey" pretty much reverts to the kind of formula that we see in this kind of thing. Ultimately, it's very routine, but that doesn't mean that it isn't well made, or reasonably entertaining, because it is. Certainly Uthaug and company get a ton of atmosphere out of their main location, and another nice touch is the fact that this is "a black & white film in colour"; in other words, you won't see any truly bright colours. The film is gory, but never as gory as one might think. Its characters are thinly drawn, but appealing enough, and the no-name young cast is all engaging enough to watch.Jannicke (Ingrid Bolso Berdal), Morten Tobias (Rolf Kristian Larsen), Eirik (Tomas Alf Larsen), Mikal (Endre Martin Midtstigen), and Ingunn (Viktoria Winge) are five young adults who head into the Norwegian mountains for some fun on the slopes. Their day of snowboarding is cut short when Morten Tobias is wounded, and they have to do something about it. Fortunately, they spot shelter close by: an abandoned ski lodge. Things seem to be looking up, but soon the period of calm is disrupted by the fact that a hulking killer wielding a nasty pick axe is also on the premises.Appropriately stark cinematography by Daniel Voldheim is a heavy asset here. Less patient viewers may take exception to the pacing here, as it takes about 40 minutes for the true horror to start taking place. Still, up to then the actors are capable of maintaining interest, playing the material with likability and humour. Once the film is well underway, things only get darker and grimmer and Uthaug creates some good suspense. Fortunately, the killer isn't over explained. And the "final girl" in this scenario does do some thinking on her feet (or off her feet, as the case may be).Overall, a respectable effort.Followed by two sequels.Six out of 10.

Lucky for me for being a Horror freak, as it has really helped me get over my phobia of foreign cinema. Beforehand I hadn't been able to get over the language barrier. This has been my first taste of Norwegian Horror, and I must say I liked it!Frit Vilt is a classic Slasher with a fairly common background story - youngsters go on ski vacation (to a far and desolate place, obviously), one of them gets injured, they find an "abandoned" cabin and use it for shelter, enter Slasher, let there be blood. No points for originality. Also, one of the cheapest cheats were used (can't call for help on account of cells having no signals, as according to most of the Horror genre there is no place in the world with cellular reception, and that always lowers a film's level for me.However, I was pretty impressed with how director Uthaug managed to take an unoriginal story and an unoriginal sub-genre, and still make a pretty decent film! The characters are interesting in their own unoriginal way, the Slasher was pretty neat, and the soundtrack was awesome! The Nords always did know their music!All in all, the Slasher sub-genre really isn't one of my favorites, as it has very little to show after we've seen it all in the classics (Friday the 13th and such). And still, I found myself really enjoying the film. Being a Slasher film made the road pretty obvious, and I still found the way the characters walked it to be interesting. After the many Slashers already done, it's not easy at all to make a good one, and Frit Vilt is a good one! Could have used a nice twist though. Looking forward to the sequel!

The Cold Prey movies have been suggested to me for a very long time. I have had many people tell me how great they are and how much I would love them. So I finally decided to check them out and im glad I did but not as impressed as I was told I to would be.As "Cold Prey" starts you get the feeling you are watching the same thing you have seen in countless other slasher films, and that feeling is correct. This film really doesn't do anything to stand out from all the other slasher films out there. The fact that it takes place in the snow was interesting but its not like this is the first horror film to do that.The main things a slasher flick needs to be great is a good killer, like-able characters, and a nice pace. Id say this movie had 1 1/2 of these things. The killer was great, whats not to like about a pick axe wielding psychopath. The characters were meh, Morten Tobias is rather like-able but other than that the characters are rather un exciting. The pace is the movie's main downfall. Things really do take a while to take off.I think the main thing that disappointed me about this was all the hype around it. This was built up to me to be this great slasher movie when honestly its just you average run of mill kill a bunch of young adults flick, well made but still average. Worth watching if you are a fan of the genre but don't buy into the hype. 5/10Note: With all this said, I thought the Sequel was excellent.

To avoid the crowded tourist resorts, five snow boarders head out to an isolated mountain with a dazzling descent rate. What they naturally forgot to consider is that one of them might make a nasty fall and in that case they'd be trapped and cut off from the outside world. This is exactly what happens, of course, when Morton Tobias breaks his leg and the quintet has no other option but to look for shelter in a nearby abandoned hotel. The place isn't just forsaken for no reason, as something dreadful took place here years ago. There was a fire and the disappearance of a deformed young boy. All this happened in 1975, thus plenty of time for him to grow into a unworldly and pick-axe wielding psychopath. "Cold Prey" represents a new – and not necessarily American – generation of uncanny slashers. It's wild and exciting, but also massively clichéd and derivative of at least a dozen of other movies. You can easily overlook the unoriginality, however, since the film boosts so many beautiful snowy landscapes and the breathtaking sight of authentic Norwegian glaciers. The atmosphere inside the hotel is grim and sinister, emphasized through detailed camera-work and eerie music. The lead characters are rather amiable (as in: you don't necessarily wish for them to die in such gruesome ways, but it happens anyway) and the killer is a fairly menacing figure. He's a huge bloke, kind of like the Norwegian counterpart of Jason Vorhees, with a thick furry coat and inseparable pick-axe. There's not a whole lot of gore in "Cold Prey", but the violence is mean-spirited and disturbing. The climax sequences are very intense and admirably reveals the answers to several questions that were raised earlier in the film. Good, chilling slasher-fun recommended to all fans of nowadays brutal horror as well as to fans of the nostalgic 1980's. The sequel is – surprisingly enough – even better!