Seldom Seen review | A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH

During many a night in my misspent youth you'd find me up at all hours, trolling local TV stations in search of a late night thrill. Said thrill nearly always took the form of an aged horror story or a low-tech sci-fi trope. I didn't know it at the time, but many of the films I loved and caught over and over again after hours were products of a criminally overlooked cycle of American genre filmmaking -- made-for-TV (MFTV) features from the ‘70s and early ‘80s.

Of the hundreds of pictures produced during the MFTV's “golden age,” only a few like Spielberg's Duel and the original Night Stalker are known beyond collector's circles. The rest exist in obscurity, an odd title popping up on one of Brentwood's legally suspect multi-movie packs, a few (like The Norliss Tapes and Frankenstein: The True Story) scoring budget releases from major labels here and there.

Most titles have slipped deep into the ever-expanding cracks lining pop culture's edifice. That these films have something to offer shouldn't necessarily surprise, considering the talent frequently involved in their production. That many serve as near-text book examples of how to build and sustain suspense on a scale via uncanny evocation of atmosphere and intelligent writing might, however, shock more than a few. Forgiving their period trappings, a clutch of MFTVs work with such chilly, calculated precision when it comes to pushing panic buttons they emerge as genuinely unnerving works. One such offering is 1973's A Cold Night's Death.

Following a series of strange transmissions from an Artic laboratory, researchers Jones (Robert Culp) and Enari (Eli Wallach) are air-lifted in to replace the facility's solitary caretaker, Dr. Vogel. Upon arrival they find the building trashed, the monkeys intended for study near death from the cold, and Vogel frozen in place, the windows in his room wide open. Settling in and resuming a series of experiments examining the effects of stress and extreme temperature change on the primates, Jones and Enari clash over what could've happened to Vogel. Refusing to rule out something supernatural, Jones is plagued by a strange, repeating series of seemingly random events -- windows left open, doors closing and locking. Enari suspects Jones might be coming unhinged. Faced with an outlandish truth, both men snap and Jones is killed, while Enari eventually succumbs to the same cycle that claimed Vogel's life.

Essentially a two-man show, Death elicits excellent performances from its leads. The dialog can err on the side of ham, but Culp and Wallach make it work more often than not. That the characters are philosophical opposites is rote but earnestly woven, and is used to nicely subvert expectations in the end. Death's narrative turns on a precise axis, and its maneuverings stand up quite nicely even after repeat viewings.

Two thing help elevate Death above much of its brethren (to say nothing of many modern-day suspensers) -- its smartly-realized Artic setting and the associated sound design, and Gil Melle's nerve-rattling synth-driven score. The former is an occasional go-to for the genre (Carpenter's The Thing and Fessenden's Wendigo are but two examples of films which use snowy settings to convey feelings of otherworldliness and isolation), and imparts strong notions of unease and dread here. The latter is a progressive marvel of jangled tones and pulsating rhythms and a highlight for Melle, who provided musical backing for a litany of iconoclastic projects (including Larry Cohen's fantastic Bone).

A Cold Night's Death (sometimes referred to under its production moniker of Chill Factor, under no circumstances to be confused with the legendary-in-the-worst-kind-of-way Cuba Gooding / Skeet Ulrich / nuclear ice cream truck abomination of the same name) is, puns aside, the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exceptional MFTVs. It goes without saying some titles have aged better than others and almost all have some warts, but the sheer volume of unseen-by-generations works from talents like Robert Bloch, John Carpenter, and Spielberg (who helmed two additional MFTVs as well as a sci-fi themed episode for the long-form series The Name of the Game) shouldn't be eclipsed just because some pockets don't hold up as well as others.

Death occasionally still pops up on TV in a scandalously washed-out print, and ABC continues to hold its rights. The Alphabet would do well to usher the film into the digital age, though its chances are (sadly) roughly equal to anything else from the same era and format. “Seldom Seen” will from time to time focus on MFTV titles, with the hope that someday the right pair of eyes might happen upon a review and see to it something's done to put these films back where they belong -- up on screen. But who's to say? One supposes, if nothing else, that this is why they invented Tivo…