Hello everyone. As I write this, I'm at the newest HorrorHound Weekend! By the time I finish this review, I might be back home. Just depends on how quickly I get this done, I'm a little disappointed with myself. I think I am getting too old to stay up past 2 AM and get back up before 9 AM. I was going to try to get all fourteen films in this weekend, but I ended up with a headache and I kept dozing off during a film. So, I decided to head back to my hotel room and get some sleep, Once I woke up, four hours later, I felt much better but missed three films, I could have rushed over and caught one, but I decided to get on here instead, It seems like when I cut sleep to catch as many movies as I can, I end up with a good headache, so I will just have to start missing films I think. Hard to enjoy them when you aren't feeling good and struggling to stay awake. Anyway, the first film that I got to watch was called Cold Ground (2017) and it was a pretty good movie to start things off with.
Set in 1976, Melissa (Gala Besson) and David (Geoffrey Blandin) are a couple who make documentaries together and sell them to TV. Melissa has heard about a camp on the French/Swiss border that is investigating a series of cattle mutilations. Enough cattle and some other animals have been found dead or missing to make a team go up in the mountains to figure out what is going on. David is against the idea some, as he doesn't want to be found dead, but he goes with what Melissa wants. They meet up with a small team that is also heading to the camp in order to help. Their guide is Daniel (Fabrice Pierre) who knows first aid, an American forensics expert named Blake (Doug Rand), and two scientists named Lori-Ann (Maura Tillay) and Günter (Philip Schurer). Daniel has decided to take the group in a direction that will take longer to get to the camp but will be easier for the group to get there. With a snowstorm moving into the area, Daniel feels this will be the best way to go. He has lost contact with the base but writes that off as using shortwave radios that the mountains and trees can easily mess with. The first day goes by with no problems, but the second day they find what looks like fresh remains not far from their makeshift camp. By the third day, they realize they are in trouble when human remains are found. Something in the mountains doesn't like them there, but what is it?
Cold Ground is a French film from writer/director Fabien Delage. The start of this movie tells us that the footage we are about to see was found fairly recently and was transferred to digital film to make the movie. As you can probably now guess, this is a found footage style film. It reminded me, and others, of The Blair Witch Project, but it isn't a direct copy of it. We see the team walking through the woods and find remains instead of rocks, but that is pretty much it as far as the two being alike, I was a little surprised by what it is they find is after them. The way it was being talked about, why a team was there to start with, I had an idea that it was probably aliens. That isn't the case though. Instead we get the Yahoo or their version of Bigfoot. That might be a little bit of a spoiler, but I like for people to know what kind of film they are getting into instead of believing one thing and being disappointed when it isn't that. The story doesn't try to hide what it is anyway, though it takes a while before the Yahoo is mentioned. I didn't mind that Cold Ground was a found footage style film, though it runs into the usual problem of not being able to see things clearly as characters move and react to things. I didn't really get why David was filming a lot of the time during the walk to the base camp though. They are supposed to be using actual film and while David says he has packed plenty, I would think that they would want to save it for more important things instead of just walking around. We are treated to nice shots of the area, which is always cool, and we get interviews with some of the people along the way as well. Between them all walking there and walking back at times to get away, I felt that way too much time was spent watching them walk. To give the story some credit, they came up with the excuse that the lamp was needed and they couldn't use the lamp without filming. Since I don't know much at all about film cameras, I don't know if that is true or not, but didn't feel like a very good excuse, for filming I mean, but I went with it.
The effects of Cold Ground are mild. There are the remains that I mentioned above and that is as gory as things get. We do see the face of one person after they have died, which looks pretty scratched up. I went on writing but then I remembered there is a fairly gory scene. One of the characters gets hurt and is afraid frostbite has set in so wants that part to be cut off. We get to watch this happen using a small knife and a rock to get through the bones. It isn't like up close and personal, but still graphic. I was a little disappointed that we don't see a Yahoo in full attack mode and really tear into someone, but it makes sense that we don't. Would you stick around and film it? As far as the Yahoos themselves, it was hard to say if they looked good or not. Without being able to pause the movie, we only get the see a Yahoo for a couple of seconds at the most before the camera turns away or the Yahoo runs by. From what I could tell, they look a lot different from what we see in Bigfoot movies. The acting was pretty good I thought. I enjoyed the two leads and there is a good moment for them as they decide what to do next, so they did work well together and were believable as a couple. I liked that this was a small cast. The others don't get to do a whole lot, but they were still good actors.
I've been reading for a while now that found footage is a dead sub-genre in horror. I agree that a lot of films use it, though I don't think as many do now as they once did. One thing I like about it over other sub-genres is that you can cover all kinds of ground with it. It can be a ghost story, about zombies, or in this case, about Yahoos. I did feel that this was more of a throwback found footage film though. You don't see very many of this type of film just use one camera anymore. With the story being set in 1976 and just having one camera guy, it makes sense but felt odd at the same time. I liked the setting for Cold Ground, as we just don't get many found footage films set in the mountains. A minor problem I had was that Melissa doesn't seem to show how cold it is there. She is usually seen without a hood on or any kind of hat more often than not. I thought everyone knew that you should keep your head covered when out in the cold for a long time since that is where you lose most of your body heat. I did like that they used heat packs, chemicals that get mixed to create heat, which I didn't realize dated back that far. Anyway, I didn't find Cold Ground to be a great film, but it was a good film to open the convention with. I had a choice most of the time between two films and for the most part, I stuck to one screening room that offered films that aren't out there just yet besides screening at festivals. The other room offered films mostly from IFC Midnight, so I know I can possibly watch them on other days. If you get the chance to watch this one, I would say give it a shot. It depends on how you feel about found footage at this point in time, but if you don't mind them, you will likely find this one to be okay. I didn't find it to be a great film, but it was way better than the film that followed it at least.
3 out of 5 I wouldn't last long before wanting to go back home in that cold
Set in 1976, Melissa (Gala Besson) and David (Geoffrey Blandin) are a couple who make documentaries together and sell them to TV. Melissa has heard about a camp on the French/Swiss border that is investigating a series of cattle mutilations. Enough cattle and some other animals have been found dead or missing to make a team go up in the mountains to figure out what is going on. David is against the idea some, as he doesn't want to be found dead, but he goes with what Melissa wants. They meet up with a small team that is also heading to the camp in order to help. Their guide is Daniel (Fabrice Pierre) who knows first aid, an American forensics expert named Blake (Doug Rand), and two scientists named Lori-Ann (Maura Tillay) and Günter (Philip Schurer). Daniel has decided to take the group in a direction that will take longer to get to the camp but will be easier for the group to get there. With a snowstorm moving into the area, Daniel feels this will be the best way to go. He has lost contact with the base but writes that off as using shortwave radios that the mountains and trees can easily mess with. The first day goes by with no problems, but the second day they find what looks like fresh remains not far from their makeshift camp. By the third day, they realize they are in trouble when human remains are found. Something in the mountains doesn't like them there, but what is it?
Cold Ground is a French film from writer/director Fabien Delage. The start of this movie tells us that the footage we are about to see was found fairly recently and was transferred to digital film to make the movie. As you can probably now guess, this is a found footage style film. It reminded me, and others, of The Blair Witch Project, but it isn't a direct copy of it. We see the team walking through the woods and find remains instead of rocks, but that is pretty much it as far as the two being alike, I was a little surprised by what it is they find is after them. The way it was being talked about, why a team was there to start with, I had an idea that it was probably aliens. That isn't the case though. Instead we get the Yahoo or their version of Bigfoot. That might be a little bit of a spoiler, but I like for people to know what kind of film they are getting into instead of believing one thing and being disappointed when it isn't that. The story doesn't try to hide what it is anyway, though it takes a while before the Yahoo is mentioned. I didn't mind that Cold Ground was a found footage style film, though it runs into the usual problem of not being able to see things clearly as characters move and react to things. I didn't really get why David was filming a lot of the time during the walk to the base camp though. They are supposed to be using actual film and while David says he has packed plenty, I would think that they would want to save it for more important things instead of just walking around. We are treated to nice shots of the area, which is always cool, and we get interviews with some of the people along the way as well. Between them all walking there and walking back at times to get away, I felt that way too much time was spent watching them walk. To give the story some credit, they came up with the excuse that the lamp was needed and they couldn't use the lamp without filming. Since I don't know much at all about film cameras, I don't know if that is true or not, but didn't feel like a very good excuse, for filming I mean, but I went with it.
The effects of Cold Ground are mild. There are the remains that I mentioned above and that is as gory as things get. We do see the face of one person after they have died, which looks pretty scratched up. I went on writing but then I remembered there is a fairly gory scene. One of the characters gets hurt and is afraid frostbite has set in so wants that part to be cut off. We get to watch this happen using a small knife and a rock to get through the bones. It isn't like up close and personal, but still graphic. I was a little disappointed that we don't see a Yahoo in full attack mode and really tear into someone, but it makes sense that we don't. Would you stick around and film it? As far as the Yahoos themselves, it was hard to say if they looked good or not. Without being able to pause the movie, we only get the see a Yahoo for a couple of seconds at the most before the camera turns away or the Yahoo runs by. From what I could tell, they look a lot different from what we see in Bigfoot movies. The acting was pretty good I thought. I enjoyed the two leads and there is a good moment for them as they decide what to do next, so they did work well together and were believable as a couple. I liked that this was a small cast. The others don't get to do a whole lot, but they were still good actors.
I've been reading for a while now that found footage is a dead sub-genre in horror. I agree that a lot of films use it, though I don't think as many do now as they once did. One thing I like about it over other sub-genres is that you can cover all kinds of ground with it. It can be a ghost story, about zombies, or in this case, about Yahoos. I did feel that this was more of a throwback found footage film though. You don't see very many of this type of film just use one camera anymore. With the story being set in 1976 and just having one camera guy, it makes sense but felt odd at the same time. I liked the setting for Cold Ground, as we just don't get many found footage films set in the mountains. A minor problem I had was that Melissa doesn't seem to show how cold it is there. She is usually seen without a hood on or any kind of hat more often than not. I thought everyone knew that you should keep your head covered when out in the cold for a long time since that is where you lose most of your body heat. I did like that they used heat packs, chemicals that get mixed to create heat, which I didn't realize dated back that far. Anyway, I didn't find Cold Ground to be a great film, but it was a good film to open the convention with. I had a choice most of the time between two films and for the most part, I stuck to one screening room that offered films that aren't out there just yet besides screening at festivals. The other room offered films mostly from IFC Midnight, so I know I can possibly watch them on other days. If you get the chance to watch this one, I would say give it a shot. It depends on how you feel about found footage at this point in time, but if you don't mind them, you will likely find this one to be okay. I didn't find it to be a great film, but it was way better than the film that followed it at least.
3 out of 5 I wouldn't last long before wanting to go back home in that cold
