{"id":7706,"date":"2024-10-30T23:23:47","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T03:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=7706"},"modified":"2024-10-30T23:23:47","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T03:23:47","slug":"stone-cold-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/30\/stone-cold-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Stone Cold Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Stone Cold Dead<\/strong> (1979)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dimension Pictures\/Suspense-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 108 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, nudity, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: George Mendeluk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: George Mendeluk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Paul Zaza\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Dennis Miller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 5, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Richard Crenna, Paul Williams, Linda Sorensen, Belinda J. Montgomery, Alberta Watson, Charles Shamata, Andree Cousineau, Monique Mercure, George Chuvalo, Jennifer Dale, Frank Moore, George Touliatos, Dennis Strong.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0I like to joke that the best way to spot a Canadian-made film is to look for Maury Chaykin or Harvey Atkin. They seemed to be in almost of all them. Neither one is on hand in Stone Cold Dead<\/strong>, a crime thriller in which a dogged police detective tries to hunt down a serial killer targeting prostitutes in either New York City or Toronto. The movie never makes it clear where it takes place and other reviewers are divided on the issue. For the purpose of this review, I\u2019m going with the Big Apple even though it\u2019s evident it was shot in Toronto, the stand-in for many major American cities.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Based on the novel The Sin Sniper by Hugh Garner, Stone Cold Dead<\/strong> stars Richard Crenna (First Blood) as Sgt. Boyd, a cop so consumed by his job, he doesn\u2019t even have time to go home and feed his fish. He\u2019s rigged up a contraption that allows him to perform this task simply by calling home on a special unlisted number. Why not get his wife to do it? He doesn\u2019t have one anymore. She left him over the job. He\u2019s not close to anybody else either. Even his partner Tony (Shamata, Death Wish V) walks away because he\u2019s too intense about the job.<\/p>\n

\u00a0ANYWAY, somebody is going around killing hookers with a long range rifle outfitted with a camera that allows the killer to take pictures of the victims at the moment of death. The photos are sent to the police as a means of taunting them. Although there aren\u2019t any clear suspects, Boyd zeroes in on Kurtz (Williams, The Phantom of the Paradise), a sadistic pimp known not to take it well when somebody tries to cheat him. Boyd figures he\u2019s killing girls that try to leave his employ. He sets out to prove his theory with the help of undercover detective MacAuley (Montgomery, Breaking Point) and CI\/love interest Monica (Sorensen, Class of 1984), an older prostitute with a drug issue and a college age daughter Olivia (Watson, The Soldier) who wants nothing to do with her.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It probably goes without saying that Williams\u2019 character is a great big red herring. He\u2019s a sleazebag and a creep, but he\u2019s not our killer. No, ours has an issue with the morality behind the world\u2019s oldest profession. I won\u2019t tell you more than that. Why ruin the twist that some might see coming?<\/p>\n

\u00a0I remember trying to watch Stone Cold Dead<\/strong> on TV at some point in the early 80s. It aired on one of the UHF channels one weeknight. I fell asleep on it so I really don\u2019t recall any details other than Williams. I could have made this a \u201cFirst-Time Friday Feature\u201d but opted for \u201cGrindhouse Monday\u201d instead. I believe I made the right choice. It seems like the ideal title for a shady 42nd<\/sup> Street movie house with its sleazy Times Square locations; rather, what director George Mendeluk (The Kidnapping of the President) tries to pass off as Times Square. The trained eye can see that it looks a bit too clean to be the real New York City.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The plot of Stone Cold Dead<\/strong> is somewhat convoluted, especially with a subplot about corrupt cops and a drug deal. I can\u2019t speak for the book, but in the movie it feels shoehorned in. It also suffers from uneven pacing and shaky acting. I\u2019m of two minds about Williams. While he definitely adds color to the proceedings, he\u2019s not all that believable as a psycho pimp\/crime lord. Sure, he plays it sinister in The Phantom of the Paradise, but that was for comic effect. His tongue was planted firmly in his cheek. Here, he tries to play it straight-up evil and doesn\u2019t quite pull it off. Still, I like that little guy. Crenna, as the resolute cop, fares a little better. He fully commits himself to the role which helps a lot. Unlike the movie cops that would follow in the 80s, he\u2019s not a one man army; he\u2019s just a regular guy with a badge and gun out to stop a killer.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I will say that Mendeluk steeps Stone Cold Dead<\/strong> in atmosphere and injects a fair amount of suspense. Unfortunately, he has difficulty sustaining the latter as the movie runs a little longer than it needs to. On the upside, there are a handful of genuinely thrilling moments like when the killer takes out one victim while she\u2019s servicing a customer. The kill scenes are well-mounted. The score by Paul Zaza, a mix of excitement and melancholy, feels just right. The dark cinematography by Dennis Miller (NOT that one) adds a nice level of seediness although I think Mendeluk could have pushed it further with the sleaze factor. While there\u2019s plenty of it, it doesn\u2019t rise (or sink) to the level of Hardcore or Vice Squad.<\/p>\n

\u00a0While imperfect, Stone Cold Dead<\/strong> has enough going for it to make it watchable. For me, it was great seeing the late Alberta Watson in an early role. I always liked her. Also, I have a soft spot for Canadian tax shelter movies. I keeping saying that the late 70s\/early 80s is a golden time for trashy B-movies. Stone Cold Dead<\/strong> proves me right.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stone Cold Dead (1979)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dimension Pictures\/Suspense-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 108 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, nudity, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: George Mendeluk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: George Mendeluk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Paul Zaza\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Dennis Miller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 5, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Richard Crenna, Paul Williams, Linda Sorensen, Belinda J. Montgomery, Alberta Watson, Charles Shamata, Andree Cousineau, Monique Mercure, George Chuvalo, Jennifer Dale, Frank […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7906,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-suspense-thrillers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Stone-Cold-Dead-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7706","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=7706"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7908,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7706\/revisions\/7908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}