‘Dead of Winter’ (1987) - Arthur Penn.

 Arthur Penn’s glacial, immaculately plotted 80s thriller, ‘Dead of Winter’ (1987) has more twists than a cat’s caffeinated intestines, delivering nerve-shredding shocks, and more skin-twitching suspense than a piranha-filled water mattress! Penn's sleek, malevolently Hitchcockian chiller is inspired by the vintage 1945 noir, ‘My Name is Julia Ross’. Aspiring actress, Julie Rose (Mary Steenburgen) successfully auditions for the exquisitely mysterious, Mr. Murray (Roddy McDowall) and is very soon thereafter sinisterly swept up in a frosty maelstrom of diabolical deceit, reality warping intrigue and cold-blooded murder! Coolly masterminded by one of cult cinema’s grossly neglected Machiavellian fiends, the fascinatingly despicable, Dr. Joseph Lewis is performed with a barely repressed maniacal glee by the enigmatic Czech/Canadian actor, Jan Rubeš!

Darkly shaded with the devious duplicity of, De Palma, Arthur Penn’s mean-spirited murder mystery, ‘Dead of Winter’ remains an unusually chilling experience. Lauded cameraman, Jan Weincke's photography is pristine, and another glistering highpoint is the rousing, pulse-pounding score by, Richard ‘The Prowler’ Einhorn. While I am loath to say old-fashioned, as it erroneously infers the entirely false impression of filmic fustiness, since I mean it in the sublimest sense of watching a true master filmmaker at work. Like, Robert Wise or fellow genre avatar, Don Siegel at their best, the viewer’s interest is rigorously maintained throughout by expertly deceitful hands! If you relish slickly fashioned, obsidian dark thrillers with a tantalizingly twisted, razor-edged core, the deliciously malicious, ‘Dead of Winter’ remains a frostbitten terror treat!