Jan 24 2009
The Cold Room (Review)
THE COLD ROOM (1984)
Starring George Segal (Just Shoot Me)
*No DVD cover found online. This movie came as a double feature with Deadly Drifter.*
What makes a bad movie bad? Is it the special effects, the acting, the story, or the cinematography? It can be all of these, but what makes a truly BAD movie to me is if it’s boring. Yes, lots of films have bad acting and bad special effects, but depending on how over the top they are, I’m intrigued to watch further to see how much worse it can get and have bragging rights later. But the truly bad ones that are a chore to get through are the boring ones. And The Cold Room is boooooooooooooooooooring.
It’s really sad, too, because The Cold Room’s story actually has potential to be interesting. Amanda Pays plays Carla, a schoolgirl who travels to East Berlin with her estranged father (George Segal) for some reason. They check into a boring hotel and spend time with daddy’s new girlfriend, Lili. They visit a Nazi museum where Carla and Lili get into a political argument that’s a lot more boring than it sounds. Carla runs off and almost gets raped or mugged or whatever the guy walking slowly towards her would have done. Carla’s father brings her back to the hotel and finds out she is doing drugs. Later she discovers somebody living in the walls, inside a cold room used for storing kosher meats. However, she starts freaking out and wondering if she is going crazy and slipping between eras to visit the man in the cold room. But she sees her estranged father raping her and wonders if she imagined that too. So does that mean she actually has sex with the guy in the cold room or was that a dream?
Is she crazy? Probably. Do I care? Not in the least. The huge problem with this movie is that everything is so dreary and boring. There is no reason at all to care about Carla since she is completely unlikable. Sure, having your estranged dad hooking up with a new girl can be awkward, but this girl is just too far gone to give a crap about her. Even before she starts seeing the man in the cold room, she is smoking, doing drugs, and getting into big arguments whenever she gets the chance. Any other character in this movie is better than her in some way, shape or form. Too bad they are all sleeping through their roles as well.
DVD Dump Counter:
-1 Nazi flashback.
-2 foot chases.
-1 scene of incest rape.
-1 sex scene (non-rape).
-?? scenes of under-acting and poor dialogue.
RATING: Z-Movie
Even if you have a thing for crazy romance stories about making love to a Jew during World War 2, this movie is boring, boring, snoring-halfway-through boring! Maybe with the right cinematography, the right director, and the right actors, this could’ve been an Oscar-worthy movie. But, as it stands, the movie and everyone in it looks like they are asleep. And if the actors look bored, I get bored and fall asleep, dreaming about better movies like Police Academy.
