On a Curious Sensation with Cold in July

It is simplistic to say that film is about sensation, but what when that sensation leaves you confused? Then the sensation becomes more interesting. Cold in July, a documentary style title for the UK, but more evocative in America, creates such sensation.

This is a contemporary film. It stars Michael C. Hall of Dexter (2006 – 2013) fame and makes Tarantino like references with its casting (Don Johnson) and use of violence, even offering a blood red drenched scene in the style of Scorsese or Powell & Pressburger, depending on how far you want to go back. Yet the film itself is set in the 1980s and the mise en scene is complete, offering an encompassing sense of the decade. The genres and sub genres are multiple: action, thriller, gothic, horror, revenge and so on (depending on your leaning towards genre theorists).

An 80s action film, complete with the dialogue that became synonymous with the style mixed with horror conventions shouldn’t work. Even while watching Cold in July, as Johnson and Shepard exchange quips and walk in slow motion, there is a very definite sense that what we’re watching shouldn’t work. But it does and director/writer Jim Mickle and writer Nick Damici keep Cold in July firmly away from pastiche and instead create a tense narrative that moves its characters in unexpected ways. Most recently Cold in July is, at the start, reminiscent of Blue Ruin as its everyman is thrown into a murderous revenge thriller. Yet, it transforms into more involved sensation, less cinematic than Blue Ruin, but more entertaining. As Johnson said, “If the material is inspiring and motivates you, then it doesn’t really matter what it is”.