DEAD OF WINTER
(director: Brian Kirk; screenwriters: Dalton Leeb, Nicholas Jacobson-Larson; cinematographer: Christopher Ross; editor: Tim Murrell; music: Volker Bertelmann; cast: Emma Thompson (Barb), Judy Greer (Purple Lady), Marc Menchaca (Camo Jacket), Laurel Marsden (Leah), Gaia Wise (young Barb), Cúán Hosty-Blaney (young Karl), Dalton Leeb (younger hunter), Paul Hamilton (old Karl, Barb’s deceased husband), Lloyd Hutchinson (lawyer), Brían F. O’Byrne (tall hunter); Runtime: 98; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Jon Berg, Jonas Katzenstein, Maximilian Leo, Greg Silverman; Stampede Ventures/Vertical; 2025-Germany/USA)
“Technically fine but absurd kidnapping psychological thriller.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The born in Ireland filmmaker Brian Kirk (“21 Bridges”/ “Middletown”) directs this technically fine but absurd kidnapping psychological thriller set in snowbound rural Minnesota (filmed in Finland), where there’s no cellphone reception. It’s co-written by Dalton Leeb and Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and comes with more than a few plot holes.
Barb (Emma Thompson, dramatic Brit actress) is a recent widow and owner of a tackle and bait store, in her sixties, on a fishing trip to a lake in Northern Minnesota and to spread her husband’s ashes over the lake where they first met and loved to go ice fishing. While going there in a snowstorm to her rented cabin by the lake she meets on a back road the suspicious acting Camo Jacket (Marc Menchaca) chopping wood in an area where there’s blood in the snow to ask for directions. Before leaving the area, she witnesses a bound teenage girl Leah (Laurel Marsden) running away but stopped when Camo pulls a gun on her and brings her back to his cabin. Barb stays in the area and sneaks a look through a boarded-up window at the runaway girl chained in the basement of the cabin, while Camo’s bossy ex-doctor wife, the Purple Lady (Judy Greer), is armed with a rifle.
Barb suspects Camo and his scary wife of holding the girl as a prisoner and acts to free her despite the apparent dangers in doing so.
The stylish thriller has a slippery over-the-top poetical ending that seems out of place for such a fishy Fargo wannabe story. Though it tries it can’t match wits with the Coen-brothers when it comes to doing stylish, unique, funny and bizarre crime films like this one.
Emma Thompson plays her role with an American accent and plays against type as an action hero. Her real-life daughter Gaia Wise has a small part playing her character when she was young. Emma’s presence in this unexceptional film makes it at least more exceptional.
It played at the Locarno Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 1/5/2026 GRADE: C+
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