Cold Prey (Norwegian: Fritt vilt) is a Norwegian slasher film from 2006.
Plot[]
It opens in the 1970s. A boy having a large birthmark covering his left eye is running through a blizzard, being pursued. in the meantime, police question the boy's parents about the boy's disappearance. Next, he falls into a ditch and the unseen pursuer buries him alive.
As the opening credits continue, news reports about people who went missing in the mountains are being shown.
It then jumps to present day, where a car is seen driving through a mountaineous landscape. Inside are Eirik, his girlfriend Jannicke and their friends, the sweethearts Ingunn and Mikal and single jokester Morten Tobias. They are on their way to the Jotunheimen mountains for a day of snowboarding. They leave their car along the road and begin climbing the mountain. They reach the top and they start snowboarding down the mountain slope. Morten then takes a bad fall and breaks the leg. Without cellphone coverage and limited ability to mend Morten's leg in the wilderness, they decide to find somewhere to seek shelter. They spot a hotel further down in the valley and decides to take Morten there. Upon arrival they find the place being abandoned for several years. They break in and find something to use to mend Morten's leg. Realizing that it is getting too dark they decide o stay overnight. Eirik, Ingunn and Mikal goes to explore the abandoned resort while Jannicke stays behind to keep Morten in company. Eirik then finds the generator and begins fixing it, while Jannicke, having a good time with Morten, goes to shut the main door that apparently has blown open. On the way back, she finds the guest book just as Eirik fixes the generator and power to the resort is restored. Mikal and Ingunn then run off for themselves and they discover a room being in particular disarray after a fire. Back in the lounge, they make the best of the situation by playing music from the 60s and 70s on the stereo equipment and drinking alcohol recovered from the bar. Jannicke reads entries from the guest book and discover that the last message, saying "Never give up hope. We know you will find your son" is dated to some time in 1975, suggesting it was closed then.
As they stay overnight, they soon discover that there is someone else at the hotel and that they are all in mortal danger.
Cast[]
- Ingrid Bolsø Berdal as Jannicke
- Thomas Alf Larsen as Eirik
- Rolf Kristian Larsen as Morten Tobias
- Viktoria Winge as Ingunn
- Endre Martin Midtstigen as Mikal
- Rune Melby as the Mountain Man
- Erik Skjeggedal as the boy (Mountain man at young age)
- Tonie Lunde at the Mountain Man's mother
- Hallvard Holmen as the Mountain Man's father
Sequels and remake[]
In 2008, Cold Prey 2: Resurrection was released as a sequel to this film, starting off where this film ended. A prequel, Cold Prey 3: The Beginning, was released in 2010, but was less successful than its two preceedors.
in january 2017, WWE Studios acquired the rights for an American remake, which would also be named "Cold Prey". The screenplay is to be written by Casey La Scada.
Trivia[]
- The scenes at the mountain lodge, called Stehøe in the film, were shot in the real-life and still operational Leirvassbu mountain lodge. Both in the film and in real life, their locations are in Leirdalen.
- In the scene where Jannicke and Mikal discover's the killer's lair in the basement when refueling the generator, they, among the collected items, find news articles of the disappearance case 30 years earlier. One of the articles uses the term "Ondskapens hotell", meaning hotel of evil, to describe the abandoned lodge. "Ondskapens Hotell" is also the Norwegian title of Stanley Kubick's film The Shining, based off Stephen King's novel with the same name.
- The lodge's solitude as well as it's lack of phone contact is another reference to The Shining.