Welcome to Cultoween! We’ve taken a few Halloween years off but we felt it was high time we got back into the spirit of the holiday. Since there are a finite number of Halloween-themed movies, it’s always hard to come up with a specific topic or series of films to cover. For this year’s festivities, we are using this Random Movie Generator to suggest movies to watch for our Halloween season, and then we’re going to let you know if they’re worth watching, how Halloweenie they are, and anything else we think you should know. Effectively we are putting in no values except the movie must be horror, and if we’ve already covered it we’re throwing it back. We hope you enjoy the coverage and stick with us throughout the season!
An arctic base investigates a potential outbreak after one scientist is decapitated and another is found wandering in the snow in total shock. Eventually, full panic sets in as it becomes clear that some sort of alien entity has possessed one member, and distrust/paranoia begins to set in.
It’s cold, it’s snow, and most of all, everyone is miserable in this film directed by Jesse Palangio and written by Rossa McPhillips and Simon Phillips.
This one premiered at HorrorHound Film Festival in 2023.
In short, it’s not great. It’s pretty clear that the filmmakers are all inspired by John Carpenter’s The Thing, but unfortunately there seems to be a lack of understanding about what makes that movie effective. While Carpenter works in slow burns in parts, the most important elements are the cold loneliness of the base and the creeping sense of paranoia throughout. Unfortunately, Blood and Snow has neither, but it certainly is glacial!
The film meanders for far too long with no real direction and a ton of dialogue that curiously doens’t really further character development or advance the plot in a meaningful direction. Instead, it’s there, just to be… wordy. The film takes forever to really kick off, and even when the crux of the plot is finally apparent, Blood and Snow really does nothing with it. It’s not until the film’s final 15 minutes (out of an interminable 110!) that anything spooky or substantial actually kicks off, and by that point the viewer is almost definitely checked out.
Pair that with some questionable acting, poor CGI snow, some recycled shots, and occasional sound design problems, and Blood and Snow is a seriously hard recommend, even during spooky season.
Samhain is traditionally a celebration of the coming darkness and cold of the winter season, so if the presence of snow says Halloween to you then it’s possible you might find something here. But overall this movie doesn’t have anything that would really make you think of the season – there are virtually no scares, no creeps, no tension, no decorations, and nothing to really elicit a response to the season. In short, this one’s a bust to give off that particular aura.
Skip it!
