User reviews

French found-footage yetisquatchfoot flick. Maybe 50% English dialogue, 50% French (with English subtitles on the version I saw.) A cut above most of the dreck Amazon Prime offers for free. Not bad for what it is, but the imdb rating seems suspiciously high to me. Fairly engaging once it gets going. Subjective peeves: When characters who are discussing disease theories are supposed to be scientists, they ought to know the difference between a virus and bacteria (sadly, the ignorance of this difference amongst the general population is one of the reasons we have more and more antibiotic-resistant bacteria.) They also should know that alcohol is not one's "best friend" in extreme cold, as it actually lowers body temperature. And if it's so damned cold where they are that they're concerned with hypothermia and frostbite, why does the female lead spend the majority of the time with no head covering and only a thin pair of knitted gloves? These may be trivial issues to some viewers, but they definitely lower my rating.

Here we have a movie that so desperately wants to be something akin to Blair Witch you can almost taste it.

What you get instead is an interminably dull movie that mostly consists of shots of scenery and the backs of peoples heads as they trudge through the snow. Then trudge through the snow some more. Then, for a change, they trudge through the snow.

And when our antagonist does show up FIFTY MINUTES into this eighty-five minute movie, it's a blurry mess that leaves you squinting desperately at the screen for SOME sort of payoff for your patience. Let me just tell you, before you waste your time like I did, there isn't one.

Avoiding spoilers, I will warn you that the last 8 minutes of this movie consist of five minutes of shaky cam staring at walls and two minutes of running before an insulting abrupt ending.

Just....don't waste your time. You want a decent movie about people getting lost in the woods and terrible things happening to them? Go watch The Ritual. This ain't worth your time.

People walk in the snow. A bird. People walk in the snow. A rabbit. People walk in the snow. Trees. People walk in the snow. Dead stuff. People sleep in tents in the snow. Repeat for two hours.

I find most other evaluations on this site unfairly bad. Granted, "Cold Ground" is not breaking any new grounds. Nothing original in it. Actors are average, filming is just OK, picture quality is voluntarily made bad, the plot has its share of loose dead-ends and unchartered paths...

But overall, I found it quite pleasant to watch. Why? For the setting, first and foremost. Coldness seems to creep out of the movie and get directly in the viewer's body. Also, it's entirely shot in nature. No CGI, no studio, just genuine snow, mountains, caves... Then, the suspense and its lot of jump scares kind of worked for me, for once... Also, characters were fairly well crafted altogether, quite a feat in itself, considering that they speak so rarely.

So, all in all, it wasn't that bad. I must say I wasn't expecting anything from the movie to start with and I have noticed that, most of the time, with no forward expectations, good surprises are more likely to come around the corner... I guess it was the case for me here.

If you're into indie movie and if you can give a look to low budget indipendent movies, give Cold Ground a try. Even if with some flaws, Cold Ground is a pretty well built movie which can set up some tension.

I can guarantee that it's more genuine than many mainstream horror or mockumentary.

If you can keep in mind its "indie-ness", you'll enjoy Cold Ground!

Absolutely love found footage films... this one,by any means is not the worst one,but not too good either.I would say,mediocre,for an evening,when nothing else to watch.

Yes this movie did have its flaws and did move slower than necessary, the story, filming, and acting kept me interested throughout. It was of above average quality all around which makes it odd that it had such bad reviews (with agreement on the review about animal cruelty having absolutely nothing to do with the movie and should probably be removed...). While the negative reviews are puzzling, the aggregate score of the movie is a good indicator. Not a waste of time, but not a must see either.

Like Most Found Footage, this one is boring soI can't fathom the 6.2 rating.

Half the movie or so it's just heading to a camp, then the crew starts getting decimated, just not in an exciting way.

The Actors are doing an OK job, the snowy landscape is alright, too. Yet, that's no justification to watch it, it's boring! :/

It's rarity for me to review a movie but I thought this deserved some credit where credit's due. I was very pleasantly surprised. It has a Blair Witch feel to it but with less long stretches of B roll. It was nice not to suffer through an hour and twenty minutes of boring footage that drags on forever until the last ten minutes, where they usually throw in every bit of cringe action/horror they can. The story was great. The acting was actually quite good. I found myself actually rooting for the characters.

This is definitely worth a watch, especially if you're a die hard found footage fan. It won't disappoint.

I'm not really a fan of FF films. I thought Blair Witch was incredibly over hyped and not even remotely frightening. This film kept my attention. The actor's dialogue and actions were appropriate in the given situations. There also wasn't the constant shaking camera and incessant screaming and whining as in most FF films. I would have liked to get a better view of the creature although, I'm not going to complain. I'd recommend this film.

I swear 75% of this movie is just people walking through snow. The cameraman is at the rear so all you can see are the backs of the cast while you cannot make out half of what is said. They even use a line about not needing a sound guy as the technology is very modern... You actually do need a sound guy as the your audio sucks. No subtitles for the English too.

The other major issue with the film is the pace. There is nothing much that drives the film forward and because most of the movie is walking through snow it does nothing to hold your attention let alone grip you on the edge of your seat.

The closing scenes contain typical found footage tropes. Lots of shaky camera footage while running and screaming. It's cheap and cannot do anything to raise the film's rating.

Definitely one to avoid.

This one just wasn't very good. The acting was poor, dialog was ridiculous at times. Fast forwarded it a few times to skip long walking segments. The main actress had horrible dialog and just was annoying. Some jump scares here and there. Meh.

It gives me a sort of tug of the heart strings - the demise, that is, of these dear folk who, except for the French, money-worshiping peegs, JUST KIDDING, were just trying to do the best damn job they know how. As the multinational team of folk climb a mountain at the French/German border, or thereabouts, they learn each other, the mountain, the weather, and the history, which does not include the recent history of animal mutilations.

I basically only watch horror and mystery movies. Anything along the lines of crypto and I'm in. This has that and found footage mixed in one. A lot of people with these negative comments I don't get. You know the ones complaining about found footage films, well if you don't like found footage films, then why would you watch a blatantly advertised found footage film? That's pretty stupid if you ask me and that's on you. I thought the movie was decent. Decent acting. The French girls body was pretty hot, needed to see maybe some more of that lol. All in all. It was okay with me I enjoyed the film.

Don't quit on it because of the subtitles, it switches to English quickly. I like the grainy grindhouse quality of the film. Movie is worth a watch.

In the style of Blair Witch. Starts off slow but ends up terrifying! If your looking for a good scare, Watch it!!

I have a soft spot for found-footage films, particularly those that don't contain annoying characters and dumb decision-making is kept to a minimum. As is the case with 'Cold Ground', an unnerving horror film set in the forest-covered mountain ranges of the French-Swiss border.

It's 1976, and this is the footage recovered from two journalists who went with a small team to investigate cases of cattle mutilation, but stumbled across something monstrous instead...

Where 'Cold Ground' succeeds so well is with its visual style. It does an impressive job of not only transporting us into this chilly, snow-smothered place miles from sanctuary, but by convincing us that this is the late 70s. Maybe it's a simple method of utilising a specific filter for the camera, but either way the film looks fantastic and I admired its staunchness for authenticity.

It follows the routine of similar films of its kind as we follow the group, listen to their backstories, and get teased with scary tales of the location's faux history before they settle in for the night and face a real scare or two... but it works. Come nighttime, eerie sounds augment the suspense, and though it's very basic in execution, it remains true that less is more in a horror film. A twig snapping or an unnatural howl is far creepier than a screen full of monster.

Inevitably things go downwards rapidly for the cast as whatever's out there becomes bolder and more hostile, but 'Cold Ground' proves enjoyable enough even when it occasionally threatens to undo all the hard work it accomplished of getting under your skin. Overall, this is a solid entry into the found-footage subgenre that I was glad to stumble across.

7/10

I don't mind the found footage if its done well, the dialogue is very hard to hear at times, as the movie is done as a real found footage, they should have done more to make the dialogue more comprehensible. There are three people working sound, so no excuses.

I thought for awhile they were not going to be killing animals, and right about then they had animal mutilation, so I walked away from the movie.

It is pretty bland all in all, which for me is fine, but I think young viewers will not like it at all

the end credits have no animal rights approval in them

A France found-footage film, just as aweful as it sound. Poor script and direction.