gtylerpayne I was torn between giving a 6 or a 7. Really I would say this is about a 6.5. It's an entertaining movie, there is no doubt about that. It is suspenseful and has a nice pace. The score, acting, setting, camera work... all that is fine if not good.There is nothing really new here. I can't think of any other movies that have the exact same plot, but yet it all still seems very familiar. Reminds me of other better movies like The Shining. It has few nice little twists and turns and never gets boring, but it's also not terribly memorable.One thing that it suffers from, in my opinion, is the same problem I had with the first Friday The 13th movie, an old crippled man who can barely walk just isn't all that menacing. Just like in Friday the 13th when you find out the killer is an old grandma, it just becomes a bit less scary.It seems as though not many people have heard of this movie, and I suppose that is because there is nothing that really stands out about it, but if you like horror, suspense, mystery movies, then you will most likely enjoy this.

moviemaster What a stinker. The only reason I bothered to watch until the end was to see Steenburgen and see how bad it could get. Pretty bad. Steenburgen is supposed out of work actress, living in NYC. Maybe she just moved there from Klamath Falls. It never occurs to her to get any real names, addresses or verify anything... just like a New Yorker, right? It was filmed in 1987, not 1927, when people might have been a little more trusting. So off she trots with one of the bad guys, not having been paid one dime yet. She arrives in the lovely house, gets a tour and goes to bed. Next day, the big shoot. She knows her lines. She's "hired." But when she tries to call home, the phone lines are dead. Next day, the car won't start. Then she see that her driver's license is burning in the fireplace and finds all her identification is missing. What to do. Now I realize that she's under a lot of pressure. But trying to run out of the house while the two evil doers are still puttering around and then running up a hill in a snow storm, leaving tracks all the way seems... dumb. Later having lost only a finger so far, when the evil ones leave the house trying to find her, she kills her "sister" (not), manages to change clothes with her, dump her in the window box and then wander around the house in her mink coat instead of just leaving (the "sister" arrived so she must have had a car or did she come by broom?) Meanwhile, the Keystone cops are getting an earful from her husband and are on the way... they had failed to figure out anything the first time, they believe the "dr." was treating her. Later, back in the attic, the movable body has once again appeared in a closet. Now stop a minute. This body is of the woman who Steenburgen was supposed to impersonate and she's been dead about 10 days... no embalming. Whew! No one smelling anything yet? This movie has one of the worst plots I've ever scene in this genre. I'm surprised that Steenburgen allowed her name to appear. Where the credits list her with her three roles, it should have listed the actress as "Madame X". Obscurity is best sometimes.

cstotlar-1 In terms of camera work, lighting, pace and direction in general, this is a fine piece of film-making. Penn knows all the bells and whistles as usual and Mary Steenburgen is quite amazing in her roles. I'm put off as I am so often by the many critics who look to film for verisimilitude (the "if it couldn't or wouldn't ordinarily happen in real life" brigade) that sets us so far behind our European counterparts. The film has a remarkable sense of entrapment and claustrophobia in the dead of winter in the middle of nowhere. As far as whether the events really could happen like that, I suppose I was more interested in the style, craftsmanship and general concept than of probabilities or even possibilities. The camera work and rhythm at the end of the film are magnificent. As for the "damsel in distress" nonsense, how many thousands of movies fall into that genre anyway? Are they all uniformly bad because they use a successful formula? This is the kind of movie where it's fun to sit back and enjoy the fireworks without bothering about split infinitives and the like. Curtis Stotlar

sol (Some Spoilers)We see right away that there's a lot more to the movie "Dead of Winter" then just an out of work actress looking for a part in a new film. A woman alone and driving out in sticks on the New York State Canadian border is attacked from behind in her car and strangled as her left ring finger is for some unknown reason, at that time, amputated by her killer. Things start to jell later when we see actress Katie McGovern, Mary Steenburgen, going to audition a part for a movie and the theatrical agent Mr. Murray, Roddy McDowell, whom she's auditioning the part for just goes completely overboard with her both looks and acting ability. Getting the part on the spot Murray tells a very happily surprised Katie that she'll have to travel with him upstate to see the movie's director a doctor Lewis, Jan Rubes, whom Murray works for as a manservant. We later find out that Dr. Lewis is also a retired psychiatrist who's treating Murray as a patient. It becomes quite clear that Katie is somehow being substituted for, what may very well be, the woman we first saw in the film who was brutally murdered. As the truth starts to sink into Katie's head about the real reason for her being picked by both Murray and his "Master" the wheel-chair bound Dr. Lewis. Murray & Dr. Lewis are trying to fool Evelyn the sister of the murdered Julia Rose the woman killed at the start of the movie*****SPOILER*****, both parts Evelyn & Julia also played played by Miss Steenburgen, into thinking that Julia is still alive!There's also something that has to do with a suite-case filled with hundred dollars bills that we saw Julia take out of a locker and is later taken from her by her unknown murderer but it just disappears and is never seen or heard from again as if it never was there in the first place!It's when Katie starts to ask too many questions about the part that both Murray and Dr.Lewis have for her in their new movie that she realizes that the part she's to play is that of the murdered Julia Rose! This in an effort to convince her hateful and conniving sister Evelyn that she's still alive.It's never explained in the movie for what all this maneuvering around on both Murrays and Dr.Lewis' part have anything to do with anything that supposed to be going on in the movie? Did they have something going with Evelyn in murdering Julia or were they trying to fool Evelyn, who seemed to want her sister Julia dead in the first place, into thinking that Julia was alive. Finally what happened to the suite-case loaded with cash Julia had on her and even more who was the person who both murdered Julia and took the money? The remainder of the movie "Dead of Winter" has Katie running and fighting for her life in an effort to save herself from these three murderous lunatics, Murray Dr. Lewis & Evelyn. The cops in the area, who aren't that interested in doing their job, aren't much help either as the desperate and injured, by having her ring finger chopped off, Katie runs for her life from both Murray & Dr. Lewis.The ending really saved the movie from being a total disaster by having a "Wait until Dark" like ending in reverse with the crippled would-be psycho-killer Dr. Lewis, stumbling and bobbling all over the place, trying to get his hands on and murdering Katie. Katie having had no trouble earlier dispatching the infirmed Dr.Lewis' healthy but somewhat brain-damaged manservant Mr. Murray has to fight for her life in holding the far older and much less mobile mad doctor. Even Dr. Lewis getting a knife in his back and stepping on a bear-trap was not enough to slow the old and crazy guy down.