I don’t know about you, but murder is not a part of my ideal birthday celebration.

Unfortunately for poor Tasha (Victoria Vertuga), this is exactly what happens after she and her husband, Dean (Danell Leyva) hit a jogger with their car late one night while on vacation for Tasha’s birthday. Terrified by the idea of going to jail, Dean takes charge to solve the problem, much to Tasha’s distress. When a mysterious woman named Briar (Jamie Bernadette) comes to their door seeking help, however, the night takes a turn from bad to surreal.

The title Cold Blows the Wind comes from a folk song called “The Unquiet Grave.” The words of the song thread through the film from opening to credits, signaling that Briar’s warning that what is buried in the forest won’t stay that way is likely more than superstition.

Cold blows the wind over my true love,/Cold blows the drops of rain,/I never had but one true love/And in green wood he lies slain.

I’ll do as much for my true love/As any young girl may,/I’ll sit and weep down by his grave/For twelve months and a day.

But when twelve months they were up and gone/This young man he arose.

It’s a tender ballad of love and devotion, rendered spooky by rasping vocals and the exploration of what such devotion might actually do to a person. And the Pet Sematary parallels are blessedly few.

Cold Blows the Wind has a really interesting premise, and the song lends itself well to Gothic romance. Gothic romance, however, is not what we got, and I feel it went in a different direction to its detriment. Dean and Tasha are terrible to each other, and no love is lost between them. There’s almost a weird sci-fi angle to the story that’s left very vague – frustrating because it’s integral to the plot. I don’t need everything explained in a movie, but I need it to make some kind of sense. This film left me with frustrating questions, not fun ones.

While I doubt this was meant to be any sort of genuine adaptation of “The Unquiet Grave,” the use of the song as a motif is too heavy-handed to not be acknowledged. It’s disappointing and the acting isn’t strong enough to cover for the weak story. Maybe if the film went into any of its folklore it’d be more entertaining, but as it is, this is a movie you put on in the background while doing laundry or something similar.

4 out of 10