Cold Blows The Wind, written and directed by Eric Williford, opens with a montage wherein Tasha (Victoria Vertuga) and her husband Dean (Danell Leyva) leave her birthday party both inebriated and hit a jogger while driving. Interspersed with this is Briar (Jamie Bernadette), reciting a poem that features the title in its line. Once at Dean’s family cabin, Tasha and Dean pop open the trunk and discover the jogger is still alive.
This brings up the first issue with the horror-thriller. The decision to murder the injured man via knife stabbings is very rushed. There’s a little build-up to this happening, and the film would work better had the married couple killed him via their car accident instead. The rest of the story picks up after Tasha and Dean bury the body. Back home, the two bicker and argue over the ease with which Dean killed the man and how to best move forward. They’re interrupted by Briar knocking on the door. She stumbles in, mumbling about a man who is after her, and then tells them she knows their secret. She uses the information about the murder to get Tasha to do what she wants while Dean is out investigating Briar’s claim of the dead not staying buried.
“…the two bicker and argue over the ease with which Dean killed the man…”
Cold Blows The Wind is uneven on the acting front. Leyva is stiff as a board, reciting lines with little to no emotion. Later on, when confronted with the supernatural that threatens his marriage, he acts as if someone cut him in line, not that his life is in danger. It does not help that his chemistry with Vertuga is so-so at best. But Vertuga is fantastic, especially in a scene where she reveals that she’s not “in love” with her husband. Bernadette has been underrated for her two-decade career, and as Briar proves why. She’s scary, vulnerable, intense, sultry, and tons of fun. She and Vertuga light up the screen together and create some of this movie’s best, most unsettling scenes.
While his story structure needs some, Williford is a confident director. He imbues the picture with a sense of eeriness even when characters’ actions or reactions don’t always make sense. When Uncle Stevie (an excellent Torrey B. Lawrence) enters the fray, there’s a menace to what he says. There’s an underlying dread to the mysterious and supernatural happenings that explode into full-on horror about halfway through.
While the story feels rushed, Cold Blows The Wind is worth a watch. Three of the four leads are excellent, with Bernadette leading the charge as a scary and enticing inhuman (?) entity. The direction maintains the tension and horror well, and the ending is nail-biting.
For more information, visit the official Cold Blows The Wind site.
"…imbues the picture with a sense of eeriness..."
