Bone Cold - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Bone Cold



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
There’s that old persistent cynical joke among film goes about how “there is no way they had a script, they must have just winged the whole thing!” when watching a poorly done film. Usually that’s not the case, and usually there’s a whole staff of writers with at least a framework with beginning and end mapped out for the studio heads to OK before production. However, if you watch the single making of featurette on the disc, Billy Hanson guiltily admits that he didn’t have a script ready when they started production. There wasn’t even a beginning and an end envisioned. All he had was a vague concept of a guy running through the woods away from a monster, and decided to just “go where the spirit moved”, making it up as they went along.

The story introduces us to two special forces commandos named Jon Bryant (Jonathan Stoddard) and Marco Miller (Matt Munroe). Jon is a combat sniper sent to take out some bad guy in desert with Marco as his spotter. Everything seems A-OK at first (outside of Jon seemingly seeing the guy he just killed alive for a split second) and the two are sent on another mission almost as soon as they get home. This mission is a seek and destroy mission, intent on taking out a Russian separatist hiding out in Ukraine before he can cause more damage. Thing is, U.S. forces are not supposed to be there, and thew have to get in, ID the target, kill him, and get out without anyone knowing.

The mission goes as planned, with the duo taking out the intended target and requesting an evac to get back home to their families. However, mission control informs Jon and Marco that they’ve hit the wrong target, and that the intended separatist is just 5 clicks from there. Heading out to finish the mission Jon starts to see things in the distance. A brief glimpse of something off to the side at first. But as the mission progresses it becomes clear that there is SOMETHING malevolent in the woods. Something that is hunting them and shows no signs of letting up.

Bone Cold suffers from several major problems. The first being Billy Hanson’s obvious lack of preparation and feature film experience. The first half of the movie comes across as a decently competent DTV war movie. The whole interaction with the sniper in the woods and the mistaken target is actually quite compelling. But you can really tell that Hanson was making things up as he went along the more and more the monster was introduced to the film. I started having a gut reaction that this wasn’t a real supernatural film right around the time Jon confronted the beast in the woods. My gut kept saying “I really think he’s aiming at a PTSD allegory”, only for the next 15 minutes to pretty much confirm that.

Hanson’s compiling scenarios from Predator, countless other war movies, and a PTSD allegory story is just hugely jumbled up and confusing. Especially in the second act. The entire time I kept thinking “this would actually be a decent survival/war movie if this stupid monster would stop appearing”. Even after the big reveal of the monster in the final act, I kept thinking “this was completely unnecessary, the monster doesn’t have to be here”, coupled with “wow, they really went hammy for the finale reveal didn’t they?”. Bone Cold suffers a lot from fractured ideas and storytelling, along with rushed editing and writing (you can see where they dubbed in lines later in the film, and they’re almost Steven Seagal over dubbing his lines off pacing), not to mention a frustrating ending. Which is sad considering how much I actually was enjoying the first hour of the film.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

According to what info I could dig up online, it seems that Bone Cold was shot using the Panasonic Eva 1 cameras (no clue on the resolution of the master) and the results are interesting. Out in the wilds of Ukraine the flick is given a very cool and cold look, with brilliant whites and a sold blue grading over the top. Details are excellent, and black levels deep and inky (outside of some minor banding). The shots back home for the soldiers, or in the underground bunker where they receive their mission is a bit more problematic. Sickly yellow and greens tinge the image, and things get really super soft all of a sudden (check out the two soldiers when they step out of the vehicle after getting home), along with problematic blacks (such as when Jon and his wife are standing at the window at the end). It’s mostly a great looking image, just a tad inconsistent.









Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is on par with the video, in that it gives us a stable and solid sonic experience, with a few DTV flaws. Dialog is usually crisp and cleanly replicated up front, but there is some obvious ADR added to certain scenes here and there. Bass is solid and has clean extension, especially during the shootouts with the female sniper (probably the best scene in the movie). Surrounds are decent, adding some depth to the forest running around, and the whap of bullets hitting to the rear of the sound station. Again, it’s not going to shock and awe you, but the 5.1 mix is certainly more than competent and checks off enough boxes for me to give it a solid thumbs up.












Extras:

• Making of
• Blooper Reel
• Theatrical Trailer
• Well Go USA Previews

Final Score: ​

Bone Cold has promise of a good story hiding underneath all of the “why don’t we try this?” attempts jammed into the narrative. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great by any stretch of the imagination as a result either. The Blu-ray looks and sounds about what you would expect from a low budget flick, and the typical mediocre extras are included as well (with that hyper revealing “making of” feature that pretty much clues us in that Hanson was flying by the seat of his pants). Low Rental is my personal recommendation.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jonathan Stoddar, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Elise Greene, Jennifer Khoe, Matt Munroe
Directed by: Billy Hanson
Written by: Billy Hanson
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: NR
Runtime: 109 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: June 13th, 2023

Recommendation: Low Rental

 

[Todd Anderson]

Wait. What??? This director actually secured funding without a polished script?

Wow