Dead of Winter (1987)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I was torn between giving a 6 or a 7. Really I would say this is about a 6.5. It's an entertaining movie, there is no doubt about that. It is suspenseful and has a nice pace. The score, acting, setting, camera work... all that is fine if not good.There is nothing really new here. I can't think of any other movies that have the exact same plot, but yet it all still seems very familiar. Reminds me of other better movies like The Shining. It has few nice little twists and turns and never gets boring, but it's also not terribly memorable.One thing that it suffers from, in my opinion, is the same problem I had with the first Friday The 13th movie, an old crippled man who can barely walk just isn't all that menacing. Just like in Friday the 13th when you find out the killer is an old grandma, it just becomes a bit less scary.It seems as though not many people have heard of this movie, and I suppose that is because there is nothing that really stands out about it, but if you like horror, suspense, mystery movies, then you will most likely enjoy this.

What a stinker. The only reason I bothered to watch until the end was to see Steenburgen and see how bad it could get. Pretty bad. Steenburgen is supposed out of work actress, living in NYC. Maybe she just moved there from Klamath Falls. It never occurs to her to get any real names, addresses or verify anything... just like a New Yorker, right? It was filmed in 1987, not 1927, when people might have been a little more trusting. So off she trots with one of the bad guys, not having been paid one dime yet. She arrives in the lovely house, gets a tour and goes to bed. Next day, the big shoot. She knows her lines. She's "hired." But when she tries to call home, the phone lines are dead. Next day, the car won't start. Then she see that her driver's license is burning in the fireplace and finds all her identification is missing. What to do. Now I realize that she's under a lot of pressure. But trying to run out of the house while the two evil doers are still puttering around and then running up a hill in a snow storm, leaving tracks all the way seems... dumb. Later having lost only a finger so far, when the evil ones leave the house trying to find her, she kills her "sister" (not), manages to change clothes with her, dump her in the window box and then wander around the house in her mink coat instead of just leaving (the "sister" arrived so she must have had a car or did she come by broom?) Meanwhile, the Keystone cops are getting an earful from her husband and are on the way... they had failed to figure out anything the first time, they believe the "dr." was treating her. Later, back in the attic, the movable body has once again appeared in a closet. Now stop a minute. This body is of the woman who Steenburgen was supposed to impersonate and she's been dead about 10 days... no embalming. Whew! No one smelling anything yet? This movie has one of the worst plots I've ever scene in this genre. I'm surprised that Steenburgen allowed her name to appear. Where the credits list her with her three roles, it should have listed the actress as "Madame X". Obscurity is best sometimes.

"Routine" is the best word to describe this thriller about a woman trapped in an English house. But, overall, it entertains which is why I still give it a "7."Mary Steenburgen yells and runs up and down stairs a lot. Yes, there are plenty of holes in the story and scenes where you say to yourself "Why are you doing this?" or "Why don't you do the sensible thing and do ---(whatever)?" It can be a tad frustrating as our Damsel In Distress, "Katie," can't seem to figure things out for a long time.No matter, I enjoy looking at young Steenburgen's face. She has always fascinated me; that face and soft voice. Roddy McDowell and Jan Rubes co-star as "Mr. Murray" and "Dr. Lewis," respectively, the men who imprison her, and there is a weirdo named "Eveyln," but this is Steenburgen's movie.There is a nice twist at the end, a clever way our heroine discovers to escape her lunatic kidnapper. It changes the film from being somewhat dumb to somewhat intelligent. I won't say how but it's not spoiling things to say she wins out in the end. That's always the case in films like this.They say this is a re-make of the 1945 film, "My Name Is Julie Ross," but I've never seen that. Does anyone remember Samanatha Egger in a similar trapped-in-the-English house-movie in 1965 called "The Collector?"

Actress Mary Steenburgen, desperate for work, accepts a job "acting" for a couple of old coots living in an isolated manor; turns out they need her to complete an outlandish blackmail plot (which of course will leave their hired victim expendable). A good cast and a fine director end up wading through a murky story that is, by turns, manipulative and downright foolish. Though not particularly violent, the film--a box-office failure in 1987--is pushy and ugly, exhibiting no sympathy for either Steenburgen nor the audience (both are trapped). Loosely based on the legendary short film "My Name Is Julia Ross", which did the whole thing much better in half the time and on half the budget. * from ****