Cold Ground (2017) Reviews

• Utterly, utterly dull found footage movie

  shaunr-718962018-03-06

  Here we have a movie that so desperately wants to be something akin to Blair Witch you can almost taste it. What you get instead is an interminably dull movie that mostly consists of shots of scenery and the backs of peoples heads as they trudge through the snow. Then trudge through the snow some more. Then, for a change, they trudge through the snow. And when our antagonist does show up FIFTY MINUTES into this eighty-five minute movie, it's a blurry mess that leaves you squinting desperately at the screen for SOME sort of payoff for your patience. Let me just tell you, before you waste your time like I did, there isn't one. Avoiding spoilers, I will warn you that the last 8 minutes of this movie consist of five minutes of shaky cam staring at walls and two minutes of running before an insulting abrupt ending. Just....don't waste your time. You want a decent movie about people getting lost in the woods and terrible things happening to them? Go watch The Ritual. This ain't worth your time.

• Boring

  jessicawedwards2019-01-23

  As a lover of found footage, I found this to be one of the most dull and uneventful ones. The 'monster', was pretty obviously a guy in a cheap werewolf costume. Pretty disappointing! Very surprised at the high ratings.

• Entertaining enough, but not without problems

  methis2018-12-21

  French found-footage yetisquatchfoot flick. Maybe 50% English dialogue, 50% French (with English subtitles on the version I saw.) A cut above most of the dreck Amazon Prime offers for free. Not bad for what it is, but the imdb rating seems suspiciously high to me. Fairly engaging once it gets going. Subjective peeves: When characters who are discussing disease theories are supposed to be scientists, they ought to know the difference between a virus and bacteria (sadly, the ignorance of this difference amongst the general population is one of the reasons we have more and more antibiotic-resistant bacteria.) They also should know that alcohol is not one's "best friend" in extreme cold, as it actually lowers body temperature. And if it's so damned cold where they are that they're concerned with hypothermia and frostbite, why does the female lead spend the majority of the time with no head covering and only a thin pair of knitted gloves? These may be trivial issues to some viewers, but they definitely lower my rating.

• Started well then descended into nonsense

  jjgurd2018-12-07

  I really liked the style and pace until the film rolled out the cliches, like people wandering off in the dark in the woods when there's a viscous predator loose. To cap it all off the cameraman begs his wife to cut off his injured foot to save his leg but when she removes his sock, it's not even bruised! That's when I realised the film had lost the plot, figuratively and literally.

• Not a great movie, but not worse than most either!

  t-rexx-568-1968252018-08-31

  I find most other evaluations on this site unfairly bad. Granted, "Cold Ground" is not breaking any new grounds. Nothing original in it. Actors are average, filming is just OK, picture quality is voluntarily made bad, the plot has its share of loose dead-ends and unchartered paths... But overall, I found it quite pleasant to watch. Why? For the setting, first and foremost. Coldness seems to creep out of the movie and get directly in the viewer's body. Also, it's entirely shot in nature. No CGI, no studio, just genuine snow, mountains, caves... Then, the suspense and its lot of jump scares kind of worked for me, for once... Also, characters were fairly well crafted altogether, quite a feat in itself, considering that they speak so rarely. So, all in all, it wasn't that bad. I must say I wasn't expecting anything from the movie to start with and I have noticed that, most of the time, with no forward expectations, good surprises are more likely to come around the corner... I guess it was the case for me here.