Blood Runs Cold (2011)

Over the years scandinavia has proven to be a great producer of entertaining horror films. Dead Snow (2009), Cold Prey (2006), Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre (2009), Rovdyr (2008) and Insane (2010) are just a few examples of some great horror films that have come from Scandinavia. And Blood Runs Cold is another one you can add to that list.

Winona, a successful artist looking to get away from her stressful life. Her manager rents her a house in her home town where she runs in to an old boyfriend. They go back to the house, only to find out it is not as empty as they assumed. 

Blood Runs Cold only runs for 74 minutes and you'd think that therefore director Sonny Laguna would choose for a fast and booming movie. That's not the case though as the first 35 minutes are filled with uninteresting characters bullshitting about uninteresting shit. Andreas Rylander is probaly the only one who, due to his humor, is slightly entertaining. And then the killing starts..... Even though the director claims to have made this film with only a 5000 Dollar budget the kill and fightscenes look really, really great. Some very effective camerawork as well and thankfully they didn't shy away from the gore either. One thing did bother me though -----> main character 'Winona', played by Hanna Oldenburg who unfortunately lacks acting talent. Her complete friendzone just got violently wiped away from the planet and even though the killing took place in the same house and the victims squealed like pigs Winona managed to sleep through everything. When she finally wakes up she doesn't seem to find it strange that all her friends, who stayed over for the night, just disappeared and don't answer their phone. Never mind the broken glass and blood traces, I'll just clean it up, have a wine and go on with my daily routine. 

These are the kind of things that really annoy the hell out of me and unfortunately Blood Runs Cold has quite a few of these ridiculous actions by their characters. Still the camerawork, gore, tension and jump scares kept my attention. 'Cause all of these things are done really well in this movie. I almost shitted my pants at one of the jump scares. Another great thing about this movie is the cannibalistic, creepy as hell killer, who definitely had the potential to be the next Harry Warden (My Bloody Valentine) in terms of awesomeness if this movie had been presented to a bigger audience.    

Overall Blood Runs Cold is a pretty entertaining Swedish slasher movie that, even though the budget was incredibly tight, looks fairly professional, has great gore and tension and a creative and frightening killer. It easily wins the battle with bigger hollywood slasher productions like the Friday the 13th remake and to be honest I'm quite surprised that it has been three years and no sequel has been announced yet. Grab some beers, some snacks and enjoy a blooy and snowy ride.