The Overlook Motel: ‘Cold Sweat’ is a Must-See About Catfishing, Octogenarian Terrorists
Welcome to The Overlook Motel, a place where under-seen and unappreciated films are given their moment in the spotlight. I hope you enjoy your stay here and find the accommodations to be suitable. Please take a seat and make yourself comfortable, I have some misbehaving guests to ‘correct’.
In this edition, we will be looking back at the hilariously bonkers Spanish language horror film, Cold Sweat!
Cold Sweat is a thrilling, suspenseful, and (sometimes) darkly comedic film that doesn’t seem to come up in conversation nearly as often as it should. This flick is as intense as it is outrageous. It features a crazy premise that takes itself seriously enough to be effective and frightening, but not so seriously as to avoid leaning into the inherent madness.
The film follows Roman as he breaks into the home of two older gentlemen, in search of his missing ex-girlfriend. What Roman finds after gaining entry is far more shocking than anything he could have anticipated. If Roman has any hope of making it out alive, he must tangle with two sadistic senior citizens with itchy trigger fingers.
Cold Sweat has a wicked sense of humor and that goes well beyond what I described in the synopsis above. The film’s dark wit extends past the primary and secondary characters. Even the exchanges you almost miss are witty. Case in point: The faint sounds of a disgruntled neighbor screaming, “I’ll kick you out if there’s a cat here!” Director and co-writer Adrian Garcia Bogliano (Late Phases) clearly has a knack for dark comedy and Cold Sweat is proof of that.
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Even though the deranged men are humorous, they are still quite menacing and work as unlikely antagonists. Their commitment to the pursuit of havoc is chilling and their lack of empathy is sinister. Bogliano understands how to walk the line between horror and comedy without veering so far into the comedic that the scares lose their impact. In fact, much of the humor from the film comes from the outlandish nature of the premise and the situations the characters find themselves in, rather than from actual jokes or sequences played solely for laughs.
Comedic situations aside, Bogliano uses frenetic camerawork and jump cuts in an effective attempt to instill dread in the viewer prior to things getting more insane than most would imagine possible. The sequences with the characters bathed in nitroglycerine are exceptionally tense. To avoid spoiling anything, I won’t reveal which characters suffer that fate. But I will say that each manages to sell the tension one might expect to feel in such a dire situation.
As for the effects work, Cold Sweat is absolutely brutal. It is full of goopy effects and buckets of blood. The death sequences are gleefully deranged and likely to satisfy anyone in the mood for a hefty helping of gore.
Like High Lane from the inaugural edition of The Overlook Motel, Cold Sweat is a foreign language film with English subtitles. And that may have a bearing on the fact that the flick hasn’t gotten as wide an audience as it deserves. But please do not let that deter you from checking out this inventive, darkly humorous feature!
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Where can you watch Cold Sweat, you ask? It’s streaming for free on Vudu as of the publication of this post. If you make time to check it out, please let us know your thoughts on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Categorized:Editorials
