COLD MOON
US, 2016, 92 minutes, Colour.
Josh Stewart, Frank Whaley, Candy Clark, Robbie Kay, Christopher Lloyd, Chester Rushing, Rachele Brooke Smith.
Directed by Griff Furst.
A thriller set in Florida, a small town, in 1989.
The film is different insofar as the audience very soon knows the identity of the initially masked killer of a young woman on a bridge who then murders her mother and brother. This means that the film develops not as a whodunnit but as they whydunit.
Josh Stewart plays Nathan, the son of a retired bank manager, played by Christopher Lloyd in a wheelchair. He is doing land and finance deals in secret, part of the motivation for getting rid of the owners of the land that he wants. He also has a girlfriend who is living in at his father’s house.
Frank Whaley portrays the sheriff, Nathan’s friend, also a friend of an African-American? man who was being framed by Nathan for the murders. Candy Clark, many years on from American Graffiti, plays the mother.
Nathan also uses his younger brother to help him in his crimes and cover-up. He becomes madder and so the film becomes something of a haunting story, ghosts and spirits in his imagination, people he encounters taking on these ghostly forms and his being violent against them.
1. A murder thriller combined with wanting?
2. The Florida setting, the small town, the blueberry farms, the countryside, the river? 1989? The musical score?
3. The focus on the Sinclair family? Jerry Larkin and the blueberries? Margaret and her place in the family? Evelyn, devoted to her children? Financial difficulties? The crop?
4. Nathan Redfield, the bank, his harshness towards Evelyn? The background of the plan for the takeover, his link with Charles and Irish, the schemes? Is a character, and pleasant, in the shadow of his father, his father at home, the relationship with Belinda? Her being in the house? His domination of Ben, Ben doing whatever Nathan asked of him?
5. Margaret, the bicycle, the confrontation with the masked man, the bridge, the river, her death? The revelation that it was Nathan? Ben helping him? The motivations? The confrontation with Evelyn and Jerry? The sword and the decapitation? The car in the river?
6. The sheriff, his friendship with Nathan, his concern about the deaths, the enquiries, concerned for Belinda? Warren, friendship, his being under suspicion? The racial issue?
7. Evelyn, her attack on Nathan, seemingly intense but in fact accurate? Warren and his lawyer cousin, the discussions? The meal? Their deaths on the way home?
8. The atmosphere of the hauntings, Margaret rising from the river, the various provisions, sense of presence? Preying on Nathan, the apparition of the road in his crashing into
it? Other people to being transformed in his imagination into the Larkin family? His attack on Belinda, on Ben? His madness, the episode in the restaurant and his attack on the woman? Going home, wanting to attack his father?
9. The father, the patriarch, the wheelchair, domination of Nathan, threatening to strip him of his presidency of the bank?
10. The couple, the deal is with Nathan, the restaurant, and to rescue the father? Charles being knocked over by Nathan?
11. The buildup to the climax, Nathan, over the top, the response of the sheriff? Belinda safe? Warren being freed?
12. A satisfactory blend of murder thriller and hauntings?
