"I never seen nothing like this. Well, you might want to have a little chat with the father. He's dead. In fact, he died in the sticks too, about 13 years ago. No, I mean the father of the baby she's carrying. This girl's about four months pregnant."
Not long ago I received an invitation to attend the premiere of "Cold Moon" in the company of the creators and actors, including Christopher Lloyd. Needless to say, I was slightly excited at that moment. Imagine me being in the same room together with one of my youth idols. Together in the same movie theater with Dr. Emmett Brown, the crazy professor who made the time-spiral unsafe with his converted Deloreon in "Back to the Future". Would I be as enthusiast about the movie in question, I would have been mad at myself for not booking a flight. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm was totally absent while watching the screener that was sent to me. Even though "Cold Moon" is similar to those cheap 80s vintage horror-films. I get melancholic when I think about that period. In those days, I always came home overloaded with a stack of rented VHS cassettes, after which I sat down in front of the TV the whole weekend.
"Cold moon" is an ordinary crime story that could serve as an episode in the Columbo series. However, there are also supernatural entities scaring the living sh*t out of the perpetrator (although he turns his back to them during most confrontations. Nerves of steel, I guess). And all this begins the day Margaret Larkin (Sara Catherine Bellamy) is on her way home and is being thrown into the local creek with her bike. She drowns on the spot. When her body is caught by a fisherman out of the water, it's the beginning of a search for the perpetrator (That shouldn't be such a hard task for the sheriff, since it's such a small community). Grandmother Evelyn Larkin (Candy Clark) points her accusatory finger at Nathan Redfield (Josh Stewart), son of James Redfield (Christopher Lloyd) tycoon and founder of the only bank there.
And at the same time, Margaret's wicked spirit winches itself out of the water and starts to haunt the killer. It's not entirely clear why Margaret returns as a revenge-seeking spirit. It's also unclear why the identity of the perpetrator was announced so quickly. In my opinion, the rest of the movie must be damn intriguing enough and of high quality when doing that. There's no tension anymore. And that's the big drawback in this movie. It's not really scary or thrilling. A horror without creepy moments or a frightening atmosphere can hardly be called a horror. Even though the apparitions and ghostly images are at times quite successful.
The acting performances are equivalent to that of the overall atmosphere of the film. Rather bland with a few exceptions. The only one who sort of made an impression was Josh Stewart. Although most of the time he walks around with sleepy, semi-closed eyes due to the amount of alcohol he consumed throughout the day. He doesn't look like a real manic psychopath, but his personality shows some dark sides. Christopher Lloyd's role is no big deal and is limited to a few minutes. The only thing he does is gaze at the local beauty queen (Rachel "Miss Pie" Brooke Smith) while jabbering unintelligible sentences. And then you have Evelyn (Candy Clark) and Jerry Larkin (Chester "My father die" Rushing), trying to run a blueberries farm. You can't say it's high-quality acting during their short-term presence. Especially Candy Clark was an annoying character who constantly acts hysterically after the death of her granddaughter.
"Cold Moon" isn't extremely bad, but it wasn't convincing either. Personally, I think the movie poster is brilliant, but overall the movie is just a weak attempt. The attempt to make some kind of horror didn't work well. The movie has nostalgic value. Certainly if you've experienced the 80's intensely when talking about horror movies. I'm sure you'll see this movie on some television channel in the middle of the night in the future. However, I wouldn't stay up for it.
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