31 Days of Halloween 2018: Cold Skin

2017, Xavier Gens (The Divide) -- download

We first met Xavier Gens in the inaugural year of this horror movie binge-ing, where I also began my foray into "is it horror, or is it not?" I decided then, that The Divide was not. I remember liking that movie more than I wrote, but that is probably more due to the viewing which was Toronto After Dark and involved the cast and director. But my thoughts of it being focused mainly around "does the viewer and the participants get to share in the fear?". If not, then no.

This time we get a period movie on a small, frozen island near Antarctica with Cthulhu-ian overtones. Sounds like the perfect storm (pun intended) for me. Monsters, miserable setting and isolation -- all horror aspects in my book. And yet, it didn't work. Not as horror, not as adventure. Not as a fishy love story?

A pair of desperate men are assigned to a weather station and a lighthouse. They have to fend off hordes of merfolk each night, while also dealing with the isolation and diminishing resources. I liked the setup. David Oakes is the new arrival, taking the place of the previous weather man who ... disappeared. Ray Stevenson is Gruner, the madman in the lighthouse. Almost immediately they are at odds with each other which is not helped when the island reveals its true nature; Gruner and the new man (only called Friend) are attacked by seemingly endless hordes of Cthulhu-style Deep Ones, mermen with a definite homicidal desire. And not just that, but Gruner has taken captive a very obviously female one, whom he rescued as a child and has raised as his slave, pet and ... (ick)... lover.

Yes, Gruner fucks rapes his fishy slavegirl. Despite a few rather feeble attempts, this movie is no The Shape of Water. There is no beauty to the connections, just a general ickyness. The domination of Gruner over the morality of Friend is considered acceptable because of the setting, both in year and in isolation. But at least it allows that situation to evolve.

Eventually the two men are in a place where the true horror can be revealed. They are stuck with each other, with dwindling supplies and the hordes never lessen, no matter how many they kill. If only the movie had dwelled entirely on this aspect instead of veering into the moral morasses both men have created for themselves. This just wasn't the movie to explore that. Once that becomes the focus, then we are no longer rooting for the men, but for the mermen. And when things end, you are not really sure how you got there but that he had to write "Fin" at some point. Pun intended.