Monday, January 22, 2018
Fritt Vilt Cold Prey 2006
Fritt Vilt Cold Prey 2006
Did you know that Norway has the worlds lowest homicide rate? This could help explain the box office success of the Norweigan slasher film "Fritt Vilt" (Cold Prey)- maybe they find slashing strange and exotic. Conversely, the exotic snowy location might pique ones interest in this otherwise pretty generic slasher flick.
Admittedly, calling a slasher movie "generic" is like pointing out that there are a lot of horses in a western- the slashnhack genre is well known for its interchangeable plots and storylines. At one point in the slasher movie documentary Going to Pieces, a slasher producer talks about watching Halloween with a stop watch in order to know exactly where to place the shocks in his own film! Scream, of course, commented openly on the formula, and post-Scream slashers tend to subvert it in fairly trivial ways- Fritt Vilt has the virginal girl die first instead of surviving. But the genre has yet to attempt the sort of post-modern deconstructions that the western, superhero, and noir genres have pulled off.
So, this one is about a group of young people on vacation in the wilderness, like every slasher flick; but this is Norway, so theyre snowboarding and they all have names like Jorg and Blorgen. There are some romantic subplots- these movies were always a bit like teen soap operas that end in bloodshed- and an accident and they wind up stranded in an abandoned ski lodge. Something mysterious happened there in the 70s, although if you try, you can guess it- and now theres a killer on the loose, picking them off Blorgen by Jorgen.
Fritt Vilt is certainly well-made, and the murders and mood are very effective. You can see why Norweigan teens ate it up- there have already been two sequels released there, while its only recently arrived in North America on DVD- but its not like Cold Prey takes the slasher genre anywhere new... well, aside from Norway.
