Cold Blows the Wind is written and directed by Eric Williford. It is the sordid tale of Dean (Danell Leyva) and Tasha (Victoria Vertuga), a couple scrambling to hide a terrible accident. Unfortunately for them, amid a turbulent night, a mysterious stranger decides to make herself known at the worst possible time.

The acting is pretty good. Jamie Bernadette gives my favorite performance. She plays Briar, and she does so in a way that immediately creates an uncanny air of suspicion. A great deal of the suspense stems from her performance. I did have a problem dialing into the performances at the start. The acting was often dramatic, but it sometimes edged towards being comedic. For a while, I wasn’t certain if that was intentional or not. Eventually, it would become clear that this is a horror comedy. I was happy to learn that what I was chuckling at was supposed to be humorous. The characters depict a nice bit of depth, especially within the context of their relationships. The dialogue is decent. It certainly gets the job done. It did take some time to adjust to the fact that in these dramatic situations, the comedic dialogue would slip in and out like a ninja. The comedic dialogue, and the comedy in general, is done in such a way that it doesn’t feel like it is fighting against other elements.

The pacing is good. Cold Blows the Wind is a rather brief experience. What it does and does not show was intelligently chosen. It has some great-looking settings. They are appropriately spooky in a Halloween sort of way. There is a lot of color and atmosphere that results in a dreamlike quality. The lighting plays a large part in that. Moving away from the visuals to the audio, the sound here is top-notch. When someone bites into what appears to be a lettuce sandwich it sounds crispier than a bag of chips. The use of silence is also top-notch. They know when to dial things back and let the actors act. Cold Blows the Wind is heavy with mystery. It is so mysterious that it may be a problem. It presents far more questions than it cares to answer. It doesn’t have the most realistic practical effects, but they are effective. One can easily grasp how every effect is done, but the effects are so conceptually gross and gruesome that they still work well. There is nudity so you may not want to watch this one with the kids.

Cold Blows the Wind reminds me of many wildly different films, but I would never imagine mashing those films together would lead to a product this good. While I’d call it an overall success, I do not believe every convention here was necessary. There are things here that are more filler than thriller. These scenes seem like an excuse to separate the characters in a way that is necessary for the story but don’t offer much in and of themselves. The good news is that while these feel like filler they aren’t bad. At best they are entertaining, and at worst they are forgettable. The overall experience is so short that it doesn’t feel like these scenes are dragging things out. Eric Williford and his team have expressed a fundamental understanding of horror. There are keystones of horror that are still often mishandled in larger films that this team has knocked out of the park. This makes it easy to forgive them for small stumbles.