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DEAD OF WINTER

A YOUNG ACTRESS IS TRICKED INTO STAYING AT A MYSTERIOUS MANSION



★★★★☆ (Worth the Watch)

Director: Arthur Penn

1987


A young actress, desperate for money, replies to a casting call and finds instead of a casting couch or panel, a single, suited man at a table who is enthralled with her face. After he sees her with her hair pulled up, he enthusiastically offers her the part…sort of. She must drive with him through a blizzard to a remote mansion to meet the wealthy backer of the film, and any viewer who used to be a young woman will feel the hairs on their neck stand up. At around the 22 or 25 year mark, we grow out of the invincibility of youth, the belief we can handle any situation—and the idea that any situation involving violence against us is inconceivable. We the audience knows how this story will turn out for the actress alone in a house with two men because so many have ended badly before. But how can she pass up $3,000?


Some actors are so charismatic and likable that any mediocre project they participate in is elevated. This goes for the affable Mary Steenburgen in Dead of Winter, a fine movie with a decent mystery that’s more memorable than it should be thanks to Steenburgen playing the role of our heroine actress Katie. She has a delicate presence that radiates good, so of course we worry about her when she’s fooled into auditioning for a part in a snowed-in mansion in the middle of the woods. Watching the stages of her fear is a terrifying thrill. The first night she’s uncomfortable, but accepts that the phones are out of service because of the blizzard. The next morning, she’s concerned when the car won’t start. As each obstacle is placed in front of her escape, she slowly figures out she’s in real trouble, and there’s no one who can save her. These men who want her to replace a mentally ill actress in a film in mid-production might not have her best interests at heart.



Dead of Winter is an actor’s vehicle created to make someone like Steenburgen shine, but Roddy McDowall is also enigmatic as Mr. Murray, the fragile stooge to Dr. Lewis’ (Jan Rubeš) gregarious millionaire. The mystery is big, but the cast is small, and they’re gifted a lot of meat on the bone. Mr. Murray preens and dotes over Dr. Lewis, who lords over Katie and the manor from his wheelchair. At first glance, we might be comfortable hanging around seemingly vulnerable guys like these, but obviously looks aren’t what they seem.


Dead of Winter doesn’t drag out the are-the-benefactors-up-to-no-good? storyline. The movie spoon-feeds your feelings to you; resolutions are given to us too quickly, the intriguing mystery hands us the answer to a clue immediately. Dead of Winter has all the elements of an Agatha Christie web without the slow burn, and speaking of slow burn, that moment when Katie finds her identification in flames in the fireplace is when the real horror in this horror movie begins. Katie may soon join the countless other women who didn’t realize the danger they were in until it was too late.






GENRES: Atmospheric, Feminist-Friendly, Psychological


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