Popular reviews

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  Review by Todd Gaines ★★★★½ 50

  An honest hardworking man and a convicted felon cross paths in this tense as no other dirty grimy moody edgy dark thriller. Ray Donovan's old flame? Always keep your pistol in a shoebox. Dexter's short mullet. Cheap gasoline. Who remembers the typewriter? Bloody sofa. Who doesn't drink beer before noon? Gravediggers. Sam Shepard's swagger. Dexter's Southern drawl. The score is intense as a motherfucker. It captures the dark mood to near perfection. Rick Grimes's hat. A tire torque wrench is a fantastic weapon to use against a burglar. Raining bullets. Midnight snack. Thunder scare. Fuck! This might not be a traditional horror flick, but Sam Shepard is one scary motherfucker. Crawlspace dweller. Choo choo train. Dirty muddy shoes. Jeff Grace…

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★ 3

  solid little texas neo-noir that is stylish and gross and like any good piece of paperback pulp is pretty shaggy and archetypal and mostly an excuse to take a bunch of actors in cowboy hats driving around at night and drench them in neon lights and grim atmosphere until they're forced into various setpieces involving mutilated corpses, snuff films and slick peckinpah shootouts at underground murder porn warehouses. i'm not sure it's the best version of any of these genres but i was mildly impressed that in under 2 hours it was somehow simultaneously a good-man-goes-ugly "righteous" violence crime story, a cop conspiracy thriller, a vigilante rescue mission movie and then finally one of those oldschool 70s revenge bloodbaths. movies i thought about while watching this: A History of Violence, Blood Simple, Hardcore, Rolling Thunder. more modern movies should make me think about these kinds of movies.

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  Review by CinemaCl🎃wn ★★★★

  An endless orgy of twists & turns that begins & ends with a bullet being fired, Cold in July isn't an easy film to pin into any genre because it starts as one thing, then changes its course around the middle, seems to be heading in the direction you predicted but once again takes an unexpected turn to become something else entirely.

  Set in 1989 Texas, the film tells the story of a local civilian who's all over the news after killing an intruder in self-defence, only to find his family being stalked by the ex-con father of the deceased. However, the two soon find themselves being misled by the police & with the help of a private investigator try to uncover the…

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 10

  So many films are released in the course of the year. Some are big blockbusters, some are small indies, some are Oscar-bait; however, all of them are out for viewers. Every film wants to be seen, but so few are given the popularity and acclaim that they deserve.

  Cold In July isn't just recommended by me, It's demanded by me. I blind-bought the Blu-ray, hoping for a neo-noir to give me some chills. What I got was a film so hauntingly vibrant and disgustingly pulpy that I couldn't believe what I just saw. Simply put, Cold In July is one of my favorite films of the year so far, a piece of work so wonderfully dirty and beautifully tragic that…

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  Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★ 2

  Loved seeing Sam Shepard bring it on but damn if Don Johnson didn't steal the whole show!

  Not enough meat on the bone, there was so much left out or left unsaid.. When all is said and done it was thoroughly engaging and not a bad way to spend your time!

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  Review by Florin Scanlon ★★★★½ 29

  "Good thing he wasn't in an O.K. Corral mood."

  This dark, gripping crime thriller directed by Jim Mickle feels like a breath of fresh air. There's nothing new about it per se, yet it's like nothing that came before it. It has its own style, its own tone, its own pacing, its own identity. It's unique, and as a 2014 crime thriller that's saying something; it's saying quite a lot. Calling it a crime movie or a thriller is not really accurate however, as the movie defies a clear genre classification. It's many things, rolled into one. It constantly evolves, shifts gears and becomes something else, it's like peeling an onion, revealing something new, different and unexpected with each layer.…

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  Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★½ 7

  One of the best scores of 2014, a golden supporting performance from Sam Shepard, a plot that unfolds slowly, yet always retains its tension, and a brilliantly satisfying third act. Definitely one of the biggest surprises of the year, and a film that I'm anxious to re-visit when it comes to Cornell Cinema this fall; now I've got a reason to check out Mickle's remake of We Are What We Are.

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  Review by Ian West ★★★½ 3

  Pulpy neo noir southern revenge Dexter Hotep Lansdale jam from Mickle filtered through a Carpenter soundwave atmos. A tad long, and Hudson Valley NY will never look like Texas to me, but I love the cast and as a whole, I dig this movie... a lot.

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  Review by Esteban Gonzalez ★★★★ 19

  “You know when a dog bites you... you can either chain him up... or shoot him.”

  Cold in July was one of the most surprising films of 2014 for me considering I didn’t have much expectations for it. I had never heard of director Jim Mickle nor had I read Joe R. Lansdale’s novel so I was expecting a standard and by the books revenge thriller. I hadn’t even watched the trailer for this film, but I did want to see Michael C. Hall in a starring role considering I loved his work in Dexter. I got much more than I bargained for from this witty and entertaining thriller set in 1989 East Texas. It begins as a simple revenge…

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  Review by Jacob Knight ★★★★ 1

  Jim Mickle’s ROLLING THUNDER: the gold standard in shitkicker noir, right down to Michael C. Hall’s glorious mullet. Every film needs a surly, horny Don Johnson announcing it’s “Howdy Doody time” (whatever the fuck that even means) before killing a bunch of bad folks. At first, this seems like simple old school homage (with a somewhat intrusive Carpenter aping synth score), but Mickle and Damici are up to something really upsetting in the back half, taking Joe Lansdale’s pulp transmission on generational evil and turning it into a cinematic suicide mission damn near worthy of Peckinpah, with no less than three all-timer Sam Shepard line readings. A real mean bastard, this one.

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  Review by Grooveman ★★★★★ 1

  "All right, boys, it's Howdy Doody time."

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  Review by JΔΣΞS Β ★★★★½ 3

  Directed by Jim FREAKIN' Mickle, king of the micro-budget genre films, never before has a director done so much with so little. The man is 4 movies in, all of them certified fresh - what does a guy got to do to get some recognition around here!

  His latest, Cold in July, is an excellent neo-noir thriller that starts out like a revenge-flick, but quickly twists and turns in ways I've never seen before. Throw on top a kickin' 80's synth score and excellent performances from Micheal C. Hall, Sam Shepherd, and Don Johnson and this one has "like" written all over it.

  Can't wait to see what Mickle does when he actually gets a budget for something.

  Discussed in episode #77, a Top 10 Last 10 podcast episode.

  Discussed in episode #95, our Top 20 Films of 2014 podcast episode, in which it landed at #7.