Cold Prey Trilogy

One of the highest-grossing films in its native Norway, COLD PREY (2006) spawned two sequels and all three movies are now available in this Limited Edition box set, boasting many Extras and - needless to say - thrills and chills galore. Fans of the slasher genre will be excited no end with this release.

While the original Norwegian title FRITT VILT literally means ‘Open Season’, both titles hit the mark, concerning a deranged serial killer known as ‘Mountain Man’ who brings unspeakable terror to the snow-covered mountains of Jotunheimen. Directed by Roar Uthaug, this is the one which got the ball rolling and in a brief prologue scene set in 1975, we see a boy with a massive birthmark covering the entire area of his left eye, chased by someone or something, before finding himself buried in snow and plummeting down an icy ravine. The boy was never found and his parents, who went looking for him, also vanished without a trace. Over the ensuing years, numerous climbers, tourists and skiers all went missing without a trace, and rumours emerged about something odd and uncanny going on in the area.

Forward to the present day (that’s 2006 in the film), and a group of youngsters drive along a snowy road for a snowboarding vacation in the Jotunheimen mountains. Oh dear! The friends are Jannicke (Ingrid Bolso Berdal), Ingunn (Viktoria Winge), Morten Tobias (Rolf Kristian Larsen), Mikal (Endre Martin Midstigen) and Eirik (Tomas Alf Larsen). The fun of snowboarding doesn’t last long thanks to Morten Tobias breaking his leg during a skiing accident. With no mobile phone reception in the area and their car too far away to carry their wounded friend to the vehicle, the friends ponder over what best to do when they spot an isolated lodge while walking over the hill. Initially delighted that they seem to have found help, the joy is short lived when they realise the alpine lodge is deserted and the door locked. With nothing to lose, the friends break into the building and find a guestbook which indicates that no guests checked in since 1975, with an odd message scribbled in the book: “We hope you find your son”, with a photo of a family (including the boy with the birthmark) next to it. We just know that from hereon, things will get creepy indeed. As the friends tend to Morten’s wounded leg, they try to get as comfortable as they can and even discover a generator, which Eirik manages to fix and thus get the power restored.

As the friends prepare for the night, loved-up couple Ingunn and Mikal decide they want to spend time alone in one of the empty suits and which room do they pick? Room 237! If ever there was a clever reference to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, this is it! Suffice to say that from that point on, things turn ultra-nasty…with a deranged killer on the loose in the building, who seems to favour a pick axe as a weapon of choice, never mind an array of blades and ice picks. Poor Ingunn is the first to succumb to a horrible death after she had an argument with Mikal, who had left the room. It takes a while for the other friends to realise what’s going on but once they do, it’s really a case of not only survival of the fittest but survival of the cleverest, and it’s Jannicke (think Sidney Prescott in the ‘Scream’ franchise or ‘Laurie Strode’ in the Halloween franchise) who's the ballsiest of the lot! As a deadly cat-and-mouse game ensues, there can be only one survivor and we know who that is. How the ‘Mountain Man’ killer (Rune Melby) meets his apparent demise we won’t say - but in another brief flashback scene we learn that the boy with the birthmark was chased by none other than his parents, and that it was them who pushed him down a ravine. Miraculously, he survived and turned into…the Mountain Man killer. It’s well acted and very tense indeed, although too much screen time is being wasted with our friends getting cosied up in the deserted lodge. But once things get going, they do so big time!

Following its huge success, two years later COLD PREY 2 sent shivers down collective spines, this time directed by Mats Stenberg and once again starring Ingrid Bolso Berdal as Jannicke, the sole survivor of the first instalment. The story picks off shortly after the harrowing events from the original film, only this time the action unfolds in a hospital in Otta, not too far from the Jotunheimen district. We get acquainted with Camilla (Marthe Rovik), a young doctor employed at the hospital, who just informed her betrothed, Ole (Kim Wifladt), who works for the local police, that she has accepted a post in a hospital in Oslo. As Ole walks out of the clinic, angered by the fact that Camilla accepted the post without consulting him first, he drives off into the snow-covered roads along the hills when he spots a figure in the middle of the road holding a pickaxe, only to collapse seconds later. No, it’s not our serial killer (not yet anyway) but Jannicke, who just escaped the massacre at the Jotunheimen mountains. When Ole drives the severely traumatised young woman to the hospital, she mumbles about corpses piling up in a crevice in the mountain and the police are called. Initially sceptical of her story, seeing how she held a pickaxe and her clothes are drenched in blood, the inspector and his men decide to investigate nonetheless and find indeed numerous frozen corpses in said crevice, including the one of the ‘Mountain Man’.

Meanwhile, at the police station, some of the inspectors dig out old newspaper articles concerning the disappearance of a young boy with a birthmark on his face and the consequent disappearance of other people over the years. According to the files, the mountain man was a disturbed and violent child whose parents owned the resort where the action took place in the first film. However, in Part 3 (which is unrelated to the characters in 1 and 2) we learn a different and contradictory version regarding the young boy.

As the dead are displayed in the autopsy room, so is the Mountain Man. We already know that he is not dead because just like Michael Myers in the Halloween films or Ghostface in the Scream films, he’ll always come back. And he comes back here too, thanks to the efforts of the clueless medics who have no idea who they’re dealing with and who try their best to revive him. When Jannicke, who herself is in a hospital bed, learns what’s going on, she tries to intervene and prevent medical staff from reviving the killer, but her efforts only result in her being sedated and strapped down in her hospital bed. When she convinces a young lad called Daniel, a fellow patient wandering the corridors waiting for Mummy to pick him up and who wants to play games with Jannicke, to cut the straps holding her tied to the bed, it’s in the nick of time because the killer is already on the loose and butchers medical staff and police alike. It’s down to Jannicke again to save asses, this time with the help of Camilla. Who will get out of this bloodbath alive? You know the answer, don’t you… Once again, Ingrid Bolos Berdal proves to be a true kickass babe with guts and brains in equal measure, although the rest of the characters are less interesting than in the first film.

On to COLD PREY 3 (2010), which unfortunately doesn’t star Ingrid Bolos Berdal. Reason being is the third instalment is actually a prequel. Thus, Cold Prey 3 (directed by Mikkel Braenne Sandemose) not only introduces completely different characters but turns the theory of how Mountain Man was apparently killed as a young boy on its head. Remember in Parts 1 and 2, he was chased by his parents and pushed down a ravine. Well, if the flashback sequence in this prequel is anything to go by, then he was abused by his Mum and Stepfather until one day, he snapped and killed them before escaping into the icy wilderness of the Jotunheimen Mountains. Which makes no sense whatsoever, because it would mean all the various newspaper articles about a boy and his searching parents vanishing would have been hokum. Who knows. Here, the actual story continues in the mid-1980s and you can tell it’s the 80s because the holidaying youngsters still use old-fashioned tape recorders (remember those?). The friends in question are Hedda (Ida Marie Bakkerud), Siri (Julie Rusti), Knut (Sturla Rui), Anders (Kim Falck-Jorgensen), Magne (Pal Stokka), and Simen (Arthur Berning). They hatch a lift with Einar (Terje Ranes) who knows the area like none other, although they lie by telling him that they just want to camp and explore the area when in reality, they hope to embark on the trail of the notorious Mountain Man killings. En route to the mountain terrain (this time it’s summer, not winter), Einar spots a parked car by the wayside, which turns out to be that of his older brother Jon (Nils Johnson), a seriously dodgy looking geezer who had cut all ties with Einar and his family ages ago and who lives in a remote hut. Einar reprimands his brother for hunting in a public reservoir before driving off. Once they reach the desired spot, the youngsters thank Einar for the ride, who offers to come pick them up again the next day at 2pm. The evening night is balmy, the notorious resort too far away and since the youngsters, who seem to be a bit on the dopey side, forgot to bring a tent (never mind food and enough to drink), they decide to camp in the big wide open. As it soon turns out, it was a very bad idea because - do I need to spell it out - our serial killer is on the prowl again and the youngsters wish they’d never set foot in the area.

There is no heroine a la Jannicke here, nor are there any male heroes (there never are in the Cold Prey films). Instead, each and every one must use their wits in order to survive. Shame they don’t have many brain cells between them and the outcome is predictable enough. There are some nail-biting moments like the one when three of the youngsters (two of them wounded) try to escape through a wild river while being shot at with arrows by Mountain Man but by and large, it’s a case of “Been there, seen it all before”. The fact that the characters aren’t that interesting and their naive stupidity occasionally borders on irritating doesn’t help. 

The Bonus Material on this Blu-ray/Special Limited Edition Blu-ray release is incredibly generous, with audio commentaries, bloopers, behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, alternative endings, deleted scenes, music video, two short films. The Limited Edition release is presented in a rigid slipcase with a 120 page booklet and five collector’s art cards.