A Cold Night's Death (1973)

The Worst Film Ever

Fresh and Exciting

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

To ALL of you who were hoping to watch it again : IT'S ON YOUTUBE !!! Yup ! and it's as scary as you remember it ! Especially with that spooky electronic music, the trapped-in-a-snowstorm claustrophobic atmosphere, the cat-and-mouse paranoia between Robert Culp and Eli Wallach and the overall creepiness of those lab monkeys ! Man, talk about a trip back in time !

Intelligent, well-directed and acted thriller stars Robert Culp & Eli Wallach, who play researchers sent to a secluded, frozen scientific outpost to investigate why contact has been lost with the original researcher, who is doing experiments with various monkeys to test their intelligence and reactions...what is really going on? Film becomes a mysterious, cat & mouse type thriller, as the two men become increasingly at odds over the fate of the researcher, and what has happened to his results, which need to be retrieved from an audio tape. Both Culp & Wallach are quite good portraying the fear and frustration that overcomes them, and that lead to an ending that is so subtle, yet so powerful when you ponder it, that I really appreciate how intelligently it treats the audience, though it is too short, since the story had more potential developments.Still, I hope this near-forgotten film can one day get a DVD release(Shout/Scream Factory please take note!) Only way to view this film is on YouTube, and you never know when it will be taken down again...

This television movie is aptly titled, two doctors Drs Jones and Enari played by Robert Culp and Eli Wallach are sent to an isolated Arctic research lab because Dr Vogel hadn't had contact with the base research station in five days due to snowstorms.But before they lost all radio transmission to Dr Vogel, radio contact between the base and Dr Vogel grew increasingly sporadic and irrational, the doctor rantings about conversations with Napoleon and Alexander The Great have become a great concern naturally.The Tower Mountain Research Station where Vogel was stationed had been conducting high altitude experiments on monkeys and chimps furthermore fearing their four years worth of research had been wasted, two doctors chosen for their experience in research in stress situations for space programs are sent to relieve Dr Vogel.What they find is the research station in shambles, the monkey's nearly dead from exposure, and Dr Vogel sitting prone frozen to death in the electronics room with the window wide open and 300 feet worth of used tape on the recorder in front of him.Sending the helicopter pilot and Vogel's body off back to the base research station, quickly things go awry with strange bumps in the night and doors ajarred shutting and open windows. Dr. Jones (Culp) begins to grow apprehensively suspicious about the conditions with which Vogel died and Dr Enari (Wallach) chooses to believe there is a rational explanation for everything including the coincidences and weird going-ons causing due friction between the pair. And what is recorded on Dr Vogel's thawing tape? This movie is an exceptional slice of paranoia and mood undeniably influenced later films The Shining and The Thing. The final scene ROCKS!!!

I remember when I was a kid saw my first horror movies in the late 70s, this one scared me to death. It's full of atmosphere, like if you know John Carpenters "Thing", but there's no Monster or Alien which kill one after another, the horror is more like "real life". The loneliness of the place where these scientists are working with the apes is more than claustrophobic and the more you stand by the cast and going through that story the more mad you'll get. The score give it's parts perfectly to it, old 70s synthesizer - sounds bring mad and scary atmosphere. I really hope this will find it's way to DVD ! A real underrated classic !