Twenty years on, Cold Prey still feels like a blast of freezing air through the slasher genre. Roar Uthaug’s Norwegian horror hit did not reinvent the stalk-and-slash formula, but it understood exactly what the best slashers need: a strong location, a simple setup, characters worth worrying about and a killer who feels like they belong to the landscape. Now, to mark the film’s 20th anniversary, those brilliantly clever people at Second Sight have brought all three films together in a brand new Limited Edition Blu-ray box set, which arrives on July 6th.

Cold Prey

Roar Uthaug’s original remains the peak of the trilogy, and one of the most enjoyable European slashers of its era. The premise is simple: five friends head into the mountains for a snowboarding trip, an injury leaves them stranded, and an abandoned hotel becomes the only possible refuge. It is the sort of setup that can collapse into formula and cliche very quickly, but Cold Prey survives because it understands that atmosphere plays as much of a role as the killer.

The Jotunheimen setting is not decorative. The landscape feels enormous, indifferent and impossible to negotiate without risk. The hotel, meanwhile, is a brilliant slasher space, all corridors, shadows and half-buried history. Uthaug takes his time letting the characters breathe before tightening the trap, and that patience pays off once the violence begins. Jannicke, played with real force by Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, is a particularly strong final girl figure: capable without being invincible, terrified without being passive. The film does not reinvent the slasher, but it refines it as a lean, tense, beautifully unsettlingly and properly cold.

Cold Prey II

There’s no escaping that Mats Stenberg’s sequel has the difficult job of following a film that already felt satisfyingly complete. Thankfully, rather than simply repeating the mountain-hotel structure, Cold Prey II shifts the action into a new environment and leans into the immediate aftermath of the first film. That gives it a useful urgency, as well as a slightly different (and more brutal) texture.

The sequel is more overtly mechanical than the original, with less mystery and a clearer sense of genre machinery clicking into place. That is not necessarily a flaw, If Cold Prey is a snowbound survival slasher, Cold Prey II is closer to a relentless hospital nightmare, built around confinement, fluorescent light and the horrible knowledge that danger has not been left behind.

It cannot quite match the freshness or physical grandeur of the first film, but it is a strong sequel because it respects the emotional consequences of what came before. Berdal remains excellent, and the film keeps the pace tight without losing sight of why the threat works. It is familiar, yes, but impressively effective in what is a far darker film than the original.

Cold Prey III

The third film, directed by Mikkel Brænne Sandemose, takes the prequel route, moving back to the 1980s (after a brief stint in the late 70s) and returning to the mythology around the killer and the hotel. We learn more about the Mountain Man’s childhood, which as expected, wasn’t great. Prequels are always risky, but never more so than in horror, partly because explaining too much about a killer (or monster) can make them smaller. Cold Prey III does not entirely avoid that problem, but it does find value in turning the series into something more openly retro.

The period setting gives it a different flavour, and there is still pleasure in the series’ commitment to wintry landscapes, practical threat and clear, unfussy suspense. I say that as high praise. Where it does struggles is in character depth, and that’s mainly because the first film had no issue giving us reasons to care about the characters. The teenagers here feel more like slasher archetypes than people we are invited to invest in, which which makes the film less gripping than its predecessors.

Verdict

The Cold Prey trilogy is a reminder that slashers do not need radical reinvention to work. Sometimes they need space, confidence, a strong location and a killer who feels like part of the landscape. The first film remains essential viewing and the strongest of the trilogy, while the sequel pushes things forward in a darker, more brutal direction before the inevitable prequel ends, or begins, the series on a lesser but still enjoyable note.

Second Sight’s Limited Edition box set makes a persuasive case for the trilogy as a modern Nordic horror staple, giving the films the kind of thoughtful collector’s treatment that invites them to be reconsidered rather than simply repackaged. As you would expect from a Second Sight Limited Edition release, the set is pretty impressive. The rigid slipcase (iconic in this house), stunning new artwork, wealth of special features and comprehensive 120-page book, featuring new essays by Matt Donato, JA Kerswell, Justin LaLiberty, Paul Lé’s Ariel Power-Schaub and Nathaniel Thompson, make it feel like a proper celebration of the series. For slasher fans, it is a box set worth adding to the collection.

Cold Prey ★★★★

Cold Prey II ★★★

Cold Prey III ★★½

The Box Set ★★★★