Bone Cold Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Bone Cold Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 10, 2023

Sometimes the "making of" supplements included on Blu-ray discs provide the cinematic equivalent of TMI, and that may somewhat humorously be the case with Bone Cold as well. Writer and director Billy Hanson freely (and kind of almost proudly) admits that not only did he not have a screenplay when he contemplated this film, he really didn't even have much of an idea, other than the persistent image of some kind of monster chasing a guy through a wintry forest. At least heaven can be thanked that that image is so singular and innovative and obviously provided more than enough fodder for a feature film. (Hopefully obvious) joking aside, Bone Cold actually ends up hinting at a rather interesting premise, but perhaps due to Hanson's lack of preparation or frankly lack of experience in feature filmmaking, Bone Cold never quite hits its self appointed bullseye. Instead, the film comes off as a somewhat amateurish mishmash combining elements of Predator with any number of films dealing with some kind of post traumatic stress disorder. The film toys with a certain amount of ambiguity, but may have done better with even more "what's really going on?" uncertainty, or conversely no supposedly "supernatural" content whatsoever.

The film begins with a rather chilling vignette supposedly taking place in Afghanistan, where some kind of guy on a reconnaissance mission finds a chain buried in the sand and follows it to a cache of guns buried in the dirt. Just as he's assembling what looks like an AK-47 or some such weapon of mass destruction, he's suddenly shot and the film reveals that its "real" focus is two American snipers, Jon Bryant (Jonathan Stoddard) and Marco Miller (Matt Munroe). After the kill, there's a brief allusion to something kinda sorta supernatural going on, but the film quickly segues to some time later where first an addled Jon and Matt have returned stateside, but where they're soon called back into Black Ops action. Meanwhile, did their hit in Afghanistan unloose some kind of unworldly power that is now stalking our heroes, or are they simply going nuts?

Whether or not there's some kind of monstrous entity giving chase, there's a human female (Elise Greene) who's a rather accomplished sharpshooter who is on the hunt, and the film kind of ping pongs between various cat and mouse scenarios. With a bit more accomplished writing, this could have been a subtle deconstruction of PTSD and the kind of unyielding fear that soldiers need to conquer, or at least deal with. There are some good performances helping to sustain interest, and Stoddard and Munroe create a believable bond as "brothers in arms". Bone Cold has elements of interest, but never totally succeeds as either a horror film or something with a bit more gravitas.

Bone Cold Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Bone Cold is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. I think this is the first time I've reviewed a film captured with Panasonic's Eva 1 camera, which has either 2K or 4K capability, so I'm frankly not sure whether what resolution this was initially captured in and then finished at. One way or the other, this is a generally very nicely detailed looking presentation, at least when lighting conditions allow. The opening Afghanistan sequence is properly bathed in beiges and ochres, while a lot of the ensuing wintry footage in Ukraine have a somewhat cool, icy blue tone underlying things. The only really "natural" palette might be the few summery moments stateside, where things pop really agreeably and detail levels are uniformly (no outfit pun intended) excellent. Things don't fare quite as well in some of the nighttime and/or "night vision" sequences, some of which can look slightly noisy and which often suffer from passing deficits in shadow detail and issues with crush. There are a couple of curious moments that I'm not sure resulted from either a capture anomaly or lens issues, where things can look just slightly blurry and/or out of focus (see screenshot 8). My score is 4.25.

Bone Cold Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Bone Cold features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that derives a lot of its surround activity from some rather subtle ambient environmental sounds, which can vary from wind whistling across relatively barren deserts to more menacing crackling sounds of predators moving through the woods. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available, and there are a few moments with forced English subtitles for what I'm assuming is Russian dialogue.

Bone Cold Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of (HD; 26:07) is perhaps, as mentioned above, a bit too self revelatory, but this longer than average piece offers some good interviews and some fun behind the scenes footage.


• Blooper Reel (HD; 9:57)


• Trailer (HD; 1:33)

Additionally, packaging features a slipcover.

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored so that supplements follow one another automatically (so that clicking on Making Of is essentially a Play All button. The disc is also authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases after the Trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Bone Cold Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Going by his IMDb page, it looks like Billy Hansen has had the most experience in either shorts or television productions, and so maybe a bit of slack needs to be accorded to this first feature. There's some rather interesting, maybe even provocative, content here, but Hanson never totally capitalizes on it. Technical merits are generally solid for those who may be considering making a purchase.