{"id":13110,"date":"2025-09-27T12:06:54","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T16:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13110"},"modified":"2025-11-11T11:47:54","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T16:47:54","slug":"dead-of-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/09\/27\/dead-of-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Dead of Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Dead of Winter<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Vertical\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence and language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Brian Kirk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Volker Bertelmann\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Christopher Ross\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 26, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Emma Thompson, Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Laurel Marsden, Gaia Wise, Cuan Hosty-Blaney, Dalton Leeb, Brian F. O\u2019Byrne, Paul Hamilton, Lloyd Hutchinson.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m not sure how significant this is, but I saw the new thriller Dead of Winter<\/strong> on the first day of fall. Wouldn\u2019t it make more sense for Vertical to wait until January to release it? It seems like the right time of year for it. I\u2019m just saying.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Brian Kirk (21 Bridges), Dead of Winter<\/strong> is a taut, tense snowbound thriller starring Emma Thompson (Sense and Sensibility) as Barb, a recent widow who finds herself a young kidnap victim\u2019s only hope of rescue. She\u2019s gone to a remote lake in the icy wilderness of Minnesota to do a little ice-fishing and dump her husband\u2019s ashes as per his request. She\u2019s not alone. In a nearby cabin, a teenage girl (Marsden, The Pope\u2019s Exorcist) is being held captive by an ailing woman (Greer, Halloween) and her husband (Menchaca, This Is Where We Live). When Barb realizes what\u2019s happening, she takes it on herself to save the girl.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Naturally, the universe is seemingly against Barb. There\u2019s nobody else for miles. The closest town is two hours away. There is no cell phone service way out there. Her pickup is stuck in the snow. She\u2019s unarmed. All she has is her husband\u2019s old tackle box and her resourcefulness. Then there\u2019s the matter of the two kidnappers who set out to kill Barb once they become aware of her presence. The woman, the one running the show, can\u2019t allow her to interfere as her life depends on his girl.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Filmed mainly in Finland, the snowy landscapes are a perfect backdrop for Dead of Winter<\/strong>. The action takes place in a middle-of-nowhere location where not many people tread. The feeling of isolation is palpable thanks to cinematographer Christopher Ross. It perfectly illustrates the loneliness of Barb who just lost the man she\u2019s loved for more than 40 years. Flashbacks give us glimpses of their life together from their first date to Barb caring for her husband in his final days. They reveal a lot about the unlikely heroine including her primary reason for wanting to help the girl. In other words, these scenes serve as more than filler.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Thompson, who might just be looking to reinvent herself as a woman of action, does a brilliant job in the lead role. She has a mile-wide streak of determination as she fights to save someone she doesn\u2019t even know. She battles the elements, lack of supplies and injury as she pushes forward. At one point, she takes a page from the Rambo survival guide in treating a bloody bullet wound. Could we be looking at the next Liam Neeson-like transformation?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Greer chews up the scenery as the villain, a violent psycho who will stop at nothing to get what she wants from her hostage. She constantly berates her husband, a clueless sort just doing what he\u2019s told even though he thinks it\u2019s pretty messed up what she\u2019s doing. Marsden has some good scenes as the scared kidnapped girl, somebody her main character sees as expendable.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At just 97 minutes, Dead of Winter<\/strong> is fairly tight save for some occasional lagging here and there. It\u2019s a good story though. There aren\u2019t any real plot twists or surprise revelations. It\u2019s pretty straightforward in terms of narrative. More than that, it gives an action hero with depth. It\u2019s a personal story if you think about it. One could even argue that it\u2019s Bergman-esque.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ll say this; it\u2019s definitely unlike any mainstream American action-thriller in that it places as much emphasis on character as it does action and thrills. After a summer of mindless blockbusters, it\u2019s nice to see a film that takes risks. Dead of Winter<\/strong> certainly does that. The ending will not please everybody, but trust me when I say it\u2019s the right ending.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The bottom line here is this: Dead of Winter <\/strong>is a good movie. You should check it out.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dead of Winter (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Vertical\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence and language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Brian Kirk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Volker Bertelmann\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Christopher Ross\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 26, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Emma Thompson, Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Laurel Marsden, Gaia Wise, Cuan Hosty-Blaney, Dalton Leeb, Brian F. O\u2019Byrne, Paul Hamilton, Lloyd […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-suspense-thrillers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Dead-of-Winter-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C918&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13110"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13131,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13110\/revisions\/13131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}