Cold in July Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		4.5
Overall		4.5

Cold in July Blu-ray Movie Review

Fathers and Sons

Reviewed by Michael Reuben October 6, 2014

When actor Michael C. Hall completed his final season as serial killer Dexter Morgan on Showtime's Dexter, he wanted to play someone more normal, not only to avoid being typecast but also because he thought he would find such a role "therapeutic". Ironically enough, in the first script that attracted Hall's interest, his character, Richard Dane, kills someone right at the start of the film, but the death is almost inadvertent, and Dane is unnerved by the experience. An ordinary family man who surprises a burglar, Dane could almost be described as the anti-Dexter. His accidental brush with violence becomes a trap door through which he plunges into a world of violence and revenge. Every time Dane thinks he's hit bottom, he discovers there's further to fall.

Cold in July is based on a novel of the same name by Joe R. Lansdale, whose literary output covers a wide array of genres and formats, including graphic novels. The best known adaptation of Lansdale's work to date is Don Coscarelli's 2002 cult classic Bubba Ho-Tep, based on Lansdale's novella. Writer/director Jim Mickle and his frequent writing partner Nick Damici were attracted to Cold in July by its twisty narrative, vivid characters and the opportunity to try something different from the horror films like Stake Land and We Are What We Are for which they were known. Hall's involvement helped them to attract other major talent, namely Sam Shepard, whose character begins as the film's intimidating villain and ends as something else, and Don Johnson, who gives the film a caffeinated jolt of energy at midpoint as a P.I. whose Texas-sized personality overflows every room he enters.

After premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2014, Cold in July was picked up by IFC Films, which gave it a limited release in May 2014 and has now issued it on Blu-ray and DVD.

The time is 1989 (the year when Lansdale's novel was first published). In the small Texas town of Laborde, Richard Dane (Hall) has a framing business and lives in a house with his wife, Ann (Vinessa Shaw), and their three-year-old son, Jordan (Brogan Hall). Awakened by strange noises one night, Dane arms himself and confronts a burglar. In a reflex action, Dane fires, and the intruder is killed. A local detective, Ray Price (co-writer Damici), tells Dane that he killed a dangerous felon named Freddy Russell, who is wanted for numerous crimes. Dane should feel good about what he's done. The local townspeople hail him as a hero.

But Dane doesn't feel heroic. He's sickened at the thought of having taken a life. He shortly has new cause for concern when Freddy Russell's father, Ben (Shepard, quietly menacing), a recently paroled convict, appears on the scene making vague threats and lurking at inappropriate places like young Jordan's school playground. Det. Price can do nothing in the absence of an actual criminal offense, and the first act of Cold in July plays like a compressed version of Cape Fear (either version), as Ben Russell stalks the Dane family.

But then Mickle and his cast expertly navigate one of the film's several hairpin turns, and Cold in July strikes off in another direction, one that brings Dane into contact with Don Johnson's private detective, Jim Bob Luke, a colorful fellow with an easy smile, a war veteran's combat skills and a detective's eye for detail. It is through Jim Bob that Dane begins to discover the full extent of the mysterious world into which he fell simply by pulling a trigger. Almost before he knows it, Dane is inventing cover stories to explain his absences to Ann as he joins Jim Bob on stakeouts, and he encounters violence beyond anything he ever expected to see in his tidy frame shop.

The film's third act involves yet another sharp turn into something so disturbing that even Jim Bob, who thought he'd seen it all, is appalled. It's at this point that Dane has the opportunity to walk away and rejoin his wife and son, absolved from any further involvement, but he finds that he can't. One of the core themes in Cold in July is the responsibility of fatherhood, which is first expressed in an obvious (and ultimately superficial) form when Dane defends his family from an intruder. Throughout the film, there are suggestions that Dane himself lacked a strong father figure, which makes his erratic behavior with his own son all that much harder for him to bear, as he struggles emotionally in the aftermath of the shooting.

Ben Russell wasn't much of a father, but he arrives in Dane's town with some notion that he "owes" his son Freddy a form of justice. As events unfold, however, Ben's initial impulse is constantly being undercut and redirected, as he learns more about Freddy's background. The fact that these two very different fathers are also combatants keeps the tension high at all times. The film is worth repeated viewings just to observe the tiny flickers that pass between these two even when they aren't looking directly at each other.

Hall's remarkable ability to draw viewers into his world is essential to Cold in July, just as it was key to the success of Dexter. He resists every impulse to make Dane heroic, even when he's fighting off an attacker. In Hall's portrayal, Dane is just an ordinary guy who was getting along as best he could without much confidence in himself, when he stumbled into something horrible. If he makes it through, it won't be with a sense of pride or triumph, but more with a feeling of relief. But he'll always hold his head a little higher, and those around him will notice the difference.

Cold in July Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shot on the Red Epic by Mickle's usual collaborator, Ryan Samul, Cold in July was heavily manipulated in post-production to create an Eighties "noir" style. (A major influence that Mickle cites is Blood Simple.) The result retains many of the familiar advantages of digital capture, including clarity, fine detail and (for the most part) an absence of noise, but the image doesn't have the digital "snap" that some viewers have come to expect from their Blu-rays. The image isn't exactly "film-like", but it represents an interesting and visually striking adaptation of digital photography to a period style. The film's colors are often unnatural and stylized, especially at night, and the film's opening throws the viewer into that world immediately, as Dane awakens into a strange bluish light at the sound of the intruder.

MPI Media's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is generally a fine reproduction of Samul's lighting and his and Mickle's color scheme, with some minor issues. Light banding is observable at several points, especially at dissolves. There are moments where the image's blacks shade into gray (or even grayish blue), but these may reflect deliberate choices on the part of the filmmakers. I noted a few stray instances of noise that were fleeting enough that they may go unnoticed, especially on smaller screens. Whether they were caused by lighting issues (a common problem on a low-budget shoot) or compression flaws (a possibility that has been suggested by a few viewers), or some other factor, is difficult to ascertain with certainty. The 109-minute movie has been mastered on a BD-50 with substantial extras at an average bitrate of 23.70 Mbps, which is usually sufficient for Red-originated footage.

Cold in July Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Cold in July's 5.1 soundtrack, encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, is a hugely enjoyable part of the story that can't be described in detail without giving away important plot points. Mickle doesn't assault the ear so much as arrange precise auditory events that are every bit as important as the visual ones. When a gun fires, the volume and quality of the shot have been precisely calibrated, and so has the aftermath. A clap of thunder is perfectly placed. The squeal of hogs provides a comic counterpoint. A vehicular collision is loud, shocking and turns out to be more than it first appears. Even the sonic engineering of a simple family dinner at a local restaurant has been carefully considered.

The dialogue is always clear, despite a variety of accents and speaking styles. (In the Q&A session included in the extras, author Joe R. Lansdale supplies an entertaining anecdote about how Michael C. Hall used Lansdale as a resource to perfect his East Texas pronunciation.) A highlight of the soundtrack is the suspenseful score by Jeff Grace, Mickle's regular composer and also a favorite of director Ti West (The Innkeepers). Grace's score is offered separately on an isolated 5.1 track.

As is common with MPI's releases, a stereo PCM track is also included.

Cold in July Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentaries: The commentaries are located under "Setup".


• With Writer/Director Jim Mickle, Star Michael C. Hall and Writer/Actor Nick Damici: This commentary focuses on the performances and acting choices and especially on the interactions among acting styles as different performers arrived for their scheduled shooting days. (Hall, who is in almost every scene, remained throughout production.)


• With Writer/Director Jim Mickle, Cinematographer Ryan Samul, Composer Jeff Grace and Producer Linda Moran: This commentary deals with logistical issues, including the challenges of recreating East Texas in upstate New York, where Mickle elected to shoot because of time constraints and because he already had an experienced crew there with whom he was familiar. Mickle dominates the track, with a few contributions from Samul about lighting styles and color palettes. Grace mostly lets his score speak for itself, and Moran says relatively little.



• 5.1 Isolated Score by Jeff Grace: Grace's tense score plays in DD 5.1 at 448 kbps. Like the commentaries, this option is located under "Setup".



• Deleted Scenes (w/Optional Commentary) (1080p; 2.40:1; 16:11): The eight scenes are not separately listed or titled. Mickle's commentary explains the original purpose of each scene and why it was cut or shortened. The most interesting scenes are a longer version of the drive-in sequence where Jim Bob provides critical exposition (mostly because Johnson's delivery is hilarious) and an alternate take of the final scene.



• Previsualization Tests (w/Optional Commentary) (1080p; 1.85:1; 1:29): Mickle, Samul and Moran discuss the use of previs software to replace storyboarding, while examples from key scenes play on the screen.



• Q&A at the Jean Cocteau with Jim Mickle, Joe R. Lansdale and George R.R. Martin (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 33:01): Following a screening of Cold in July, Mickle and Lansdale take questions from the audience. The discussion covers both the history of the novel and Lansdale's work generally. The Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe is owned by Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin, who participates from the audience.



• Trailer (1080p; 2.40:1; 2:20): "Alright, boys, it's Howdy Doody time."



• Additional Trailers: At startup, the disc plays trailers for God's Pocket, Lucky Them , Hellion and Venus in Fur, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

Cold in July Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A recurrent complaint by both director Mickle and author Lansdale is the insistence by publishers and film studios on pigeonholing works into genre categories. No doubt one of the many qualities of Cold in July that appealed to Mickle was its cheerful disregard of genre boundaries, a quality he was careful to preserve in the film adaptation. The work has elements of a film noir, a detective story, a police procedural, a revenge tragedy, a coming-of-age tale and a horror film, but it's none of the above. It's a distinctive film that exists in a world of its own, anchored by an understated but supremely assured performance by one of the best actors currently working in film and TV. Highly recommended.