This is not a challenge to be taken lightly. Only serious minded filmmakers need apply. This is because the genre has been done to death, and more times than not, the results have been mediocre, middling or just plain miserable. It is not easy to formulate good dread - just like it's not simple to create classic slapstick, or invoke serious science fiction. The path previously tread is strewn with the castoffs of so many failed attempts at creating psychological chills that audience can smell the stench before the completion of the opening credit sequence. There are those brave angst adventurers who are willing to try, creative types who want to thwart convention and deliver the non-derivative goods. This is the burden writer/director Brian Avenet-Bradley has created for himself. He wants his first film, Cold Blood, to be a true exercise in fear and loathing. But just like those who've come before, he will find the route precarious and the results less than perfect.

The DVD:
In a fit of rage, JM kills his wife. He smashes her adulterous face in with a baseball bat. Almost immediately, he beings to feel regret. But now he has a decomposing body on his hands, and he's not sure what to do. When Danny, his late spouse's sex partner starts snooping around, JM decides to leave town. He loads the corpse in his car and, stopping for ice along the way, heads out to the family farm. There, he locates a derelict freezer and prepares to use it for some necessary cold storage. However, the ranch is inhabited by a trio of curious characters. John watches the place for JM's sister, and he keeps his wife Julie on a very short leash. He even has his shiftless cousin Bud hanging around, for unknown reasons. As JM tries to cover-up his crime, he must combat the constant harassment from outside sources, and his own overriding sense of guilt. When he lashed out, it was in the heat of passion. But it will takes veins filled with Cold Blood to keep from getting caught.

You have to give Brian Avenet-Bradley credit. The writer/director of Cold Blood (formerly known as Freez'er) desperately wants to create a throwback to the calculated suspense films of years gone by. He is not interested in gore (though we get a few tasty bloodlettings along the way) and he's not out to make his movie a rollicking black comedy (through that was his original intent). No, taking a page out of the Hitchcock handbook and placing a little of Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave and George Sluizer's The Vanishing into his cinematic styling, he hopes to create a compelling, original film. And he almost succeeds.

But there are problems with Cold Blood, little flaws that end up undermining the overall production. Perhaps the most obvious is the non-organic nature of the narrative. In order for dread to be really effective (especially for a modern, cynical audience), it has to flow naturally and effortlessly from the plotline and circumstances. Things cannot feel forced, or merely included to add another angst--producing element. Suspense works best when you can't see it being created, and sadly, Cold Blood shows its apprehension hand at almost every turn of the story.

JM has to frequent the one farm in Georgia where the most hyper-curious members of the busybody clan live. He can't do anything - nap, walk, dispose of a burdensome dead body - without having someone show up and ask a lot of expositional questions. When lover boy Danny makes his initial return visit to JM's apartment, it seems fairly obvious and necessary - he's just banged the guy's wife, and after being given the boot, he's back to reclaim his manliness. But John, Julie and Bud are just annoying backwoods obstacles tossed in at random intervals to make the movie seem more gripping than it is.

More importantly, the movie has no energy, no significant forward narrative thrust. This is not a typical thriller where, once the deadly dominoes fall, a chain reaction occurs which quickly and efficiently hurls our hero toward his ultimate showdown. Had he found a way to make this a South by Southeast kind of exercise, where a basically decent man is suddenly shoved into events he is ill-prepared for or capable of dealing with, we surely could settle in and enjoy the ride. But Avenet-Bradley is far too interested in subtlety and subtext, things which constantly pull us out of the motion picture momentum we are supposed to be experiencing. By the time the big blowout of a finale arrives, it's so anticlimactic as to feel like just another Act in this already element-heavy film.

Yet the biggest issue in Cold Blood is the lack of likeable characters. In order for suspense to work, you have to care about the person under attack. You have to completely sympathize and/or empathize with their dilemma, and pray that something saves the day and prevents the disaster that seems destined to happen. Unfortunately, the entire cast of this creaky cavalcade don't deserve our understanding. JM is a jerk, his wife is a non-entity (she doesn't even merit dialogue) and other man Danny is the very definition of a brawny bastard himbo. So far, no one to root for, no one to identify with, and definitely no one we want to see succeed or triumph.

Once we hit outer hicksville, the miserable motley crew gets even more unmemorable. Just what are we supposed to make of Julie, the abused country bumpkin who assumes getting slapped around by her hubby excuses her tendency toward breaking and entering and vehicular vandalism. Or how about her ham--fisted spouse John? He apparently has a mean streak an unpaved road wide. But every time we meet him, he's a genial, jocular good ole boy with a nice cold brew in his hand (even when blackmailing people). About the only recognizable type is clodhopper headed cousin Bud. Essayed by the filmmaker himself, this dufus with dropsy is like the Deliverance kid grown up and even more inbred. He's cornpone comic relief, nothing more. So out of this miscreant menagerie - a killer, an adulterer, a cheating wife, a redneck wife beater, a naivé numbskull and a slack-jawed yokel - we are supposed to find someone to hang onto and hope for. Talk about your slim pickings.

That, in spite of all this, Cold Blood almost manages to work is a testament to Avenet-Bradley's efforts. Along with his wife and cinematographer Laurence, he creates some very compelling and very beautiful visual compositions. The farm is a found treasure, a wonderfully atmospheric locale that provides a lot of production value for the film's obviously limited and restrained bucks. As for the cast, no one here is awful, but there isn't a single compelling presence in front of the camera. Everyone, from Barnes Walker III who plays the anti-hero husband JM to Carrie Walrond's helpless homespun honey Julie are invisible, more reactors than actors, as if waiting for some outside force to inspire them. About the only visible signs of life coming out of any performance are those given off by John L. Altom. He makes his abusive buffoon John a true slice of Southern squalidness.

In the end though, Cold Blood just can't get it together. Something is wrong with the way it is presented - the rhythms are off and the notes that need to be hit to keep audiences anxious and interested are atonal and out of sync. Avenet-Bradley and his company deserve a lot of praise for avoiding the typical horror film formulas that first time filmmakers rely on, believing they lead to a career in Tinsel Town. But one should really understand the genre they endeavor to dive into before getting good and wet. A couple more passes through the word processor, maybe a recasting or two, and a lot more attention to the suspense pioneers of the past would have made this one standout independent film. As it is, Cold Blood feels like a honorable mention sort of movie. It gets props for being different, but not complete and full credit.

The Video:
Shot on film and looking aesthetically pleasing and very professional, Heretic Films offers Cold Blood in a non-anamorphic letterboxed image that's on par with some of the best transfers of low budget films ever created. Avenet-Bradley and his wife paid a lot of attention to lighting, composition and framing, and the gorgeous results are up on the home theater screen for all to see. Sure, there is some minor grain in sections, and the contrasts can switch between crystal clear to a tad fuzzy every once in a while, but overall, this is a wonderful looking film, preserved near perfectly by this DVD.

The Audio:
With the help of musician Mark Lee Fletcher and a pristine Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround mix, Cold Blood offers up a true suspense thriller soundtrack. Not really music-based, but a collection of ambient noises and cacophonous cues, the amazing mood created by this aural landscape really amplifies the angst in the film. Even in scenes where actors or situations are scuttling the thrills, the sonic situation is in full panic overdrive. While it may not be the most successful independent movie ever made, this is definitely one of the better auditory offerings within the outsider realm.

The Extras:
Having learned well from its competitors, newcomer Heretic Films loads this DVD presentation with tons of additional content. First up is a full-length audio commentary featuring writer/director Brian Avenet-Bradley, cinematographer Laurence Avenet-Bradley and actor Barnes Walker III. This is an information-packed discussion, with lots of technical descriptions and personal anecdotes thrown in for good measure. While Avenet-Bradley believes he's made a masterpiece, he does mention the limitations he was under thanks to budgetary and time restraints. Along with a nice 15 minute Behind the Scenes featurette, which gives the entire cast and crew a chance to defend the movie and their part in it, we get a great look at how Cold Blood came about.

In addition to the two Making-of specials, we get a trailer, a series of cast and crew bios, and a brief collection of deleted scenes (nothing mandatory or enlightening here). But perhaps the most interesting added feature is a collection of songs which Avenet-Bradley used as inspiration for the film, and which at one time were actually considered for inclusion in the movie. That's right, the director originally wanted to make a daffy dark comedy, complete with musical numbers. Mark Lee Fletcher wrote the songs, and it would be nice to say that they are wonderful, making you pine away for the original song and dance vision of Cold Blood. Sadly, they are standard at best, and indicate how wise the filmmaker was for avoiding his first stylistic choice for his vision.

Final Thoughts:
Had we never had the previous examples of suspense brilliance, had Hitchcock and DePalma and Argento not set the benchmark so high as to almost be unreachable, Cold Blood would be a good little film. Certainly, its character and conceptual flaws keep it from being masterful, but without the precedent set by those who OWNED the genre, we would really enjoy this experiment in terror. But sadly, filmmaker Brian Avenet-Bradley is haunted by the heroes who came before, the visionaries who studied, dissected and reinterpreted the concept of disquiet until there was nothing new to discover. That each also brought a compelling artistic flair to what was basically a B-movie staple was an added element that hardly anyone wants to compete with today. You have to give Avenet-Bradley a reward for trying. It takes guts and bravado to match yourself against the masters. Sadly, he is still just an apprentice, and Cold Blood is a decent, but ultimately disappointing thriller. Instead of a throwback, we end up with something only slightly better than a throwaway.

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