Remember those thrillers from the mid 1990s, the kind that would star Ashley Judd, Julia Roberts or maybe Jodie Foster? An often generic variety that specialized in isolated females going up against some character actor tricked out in Karloffian splendor, while pleasant but sinister Philip Glass style piano music plays in the background? Now, of course, trends repeat themselvesthey were repeating themselves then from the 80s and the decade before that and so on, tracking back to classic pictures like Gaslightand it seems like we are in the midst of another renaissance of creepy dude, on-her-own female and restricted setting. Earlier this year we had The Call, with Halle Berry racing to save Abigail Breslin from a car trunk, and now Alice Eve and Bryan Cranston tangling over stolen money in an indie thriller called Cold Comes the Night. Weve got the first trailer for the movie (
courtesy of Total Film), and it looks about what you would expect from this particular sub-genre, which means that Eves harried single-mom looks appropriately windswept and desperate as things progress and Cranstons creepy Russian mobster (whom the IMDB cites as being near blind) is suitably unsettling. From the look of things Eves character, who works at a motel, comes across a dead woman and a suitcase full of cash and decides to keep it, not realizing what trouble shes in until Cranston shows up looking for it. The synopsis suggests that Cranston, whos got vision issues, will use Eves daughter as leverage to make sure she helps him retrieve the money from a crooked cop, likely played by Logan Marshall-Green, who also appears in the trailer. Whether its a case of the money being taken from Eve by said cop, or shes got it the whole time and trying to play her way around Cranston remains to be seen. All I know is that, overcooked delivery or not, I got a little chill when I heard him whisper Ill put a bullet in your daughters ear. In the ear, man? Its so creepy when you get specific like that! Cold Comes the Night, which sounds like the arcane title of an old pulpy radio program, is directed by Tze Chung (Children of Invention) and will be distributed worldwide by Sony, with a release date of September 20th in the UK (perfect time for this sort of thriller). Theres currently no American release date set. Check out the trailer for Cold Comes the Night below. What do you think? Does this sort of thing ever get old if its done well?