Thirty-One Days O’Horror: Cold Road (2024)

Let’s Ride #12!

Isolation and fear take on two forms in 2024’s Cold Road, a Canadian thriller written and directed by Kelvin Redvers. The film stars Roseanne Supernault as Tracy, a young woman who is terrorized on a lonely stretch of highway in the cold Far North of Canada by a semi-truck driver who has been targeting First Nations people. The driver uses stereotypical ideals to convince police that the drivers caused their own accidents, allowing him to freely cruise the highway in search of his next victim.

Tracy, along with her dog, Pretzel, is headed to see her mother who is dying. She calls her sister, Eve (Taylor Kinequon), when cell service is available to let her know how close she is getting to home. The first encounter with the truck driver takes place while Pretzel is taking a bathroom break and is almost struck by the semi. Writing the incident off as just a jerk move by the driver, Tracy continues on her drive. With each encounter afterwards, the driver becomes more and more threatening. Tracy tries to get help assistance from the local police and folks in the small towns that she stops in, but all of the write her off as delusional, crazy, drunk, or worse. Will she survive her ice road rival? Watch Cold Road to find out what happens!

The film addresses terror and isolation in two ways: 1) a fairly standard cat-and-mouse road chase and 2) the isolation and hate experienced by First Nations people by others. In the case of the road chase, the story is par for the course. With regards to the social experience of First Nations people, it gets pretty serious. As someone who grew up near a reservation in south Louisiana, I’m aware of the racism that Native Americans have experienced over the years. I was lucky enough to have a father who worked with a Koasati man and I had a number of interactions with him and other Koasati over the years. Most people probably know the tribe as Coushatta, which is also the name of a casino that the tribe owns. These experiences helped me while watching Cold Road, as I definitely saw similarities in the way the Tracy is treated and the way that the Koasati in my area were treated for years. It made me think quite a bit, and I appreciate that about this film.

The highway sequences in the film are shot extremely well and help move along the story at a nice pace. Tracy uses the skills and wisdom passed down to her by her mother to try and thwart her adversary. There are a few sequences in the film where we see Tracy speaking to herself and/or Pretzel, and these can be a bit tedious to get through, but her encounters at a gas station, a diner, and with other First Nations people on the side of the highway help break up these sometimes monotonous moments.

Cold Road is a well done thriller. While most road thriller films follow the same basic formula, this film adds the struggles, tenacity, and determination of the First Nations people. Give this film a look, I don’t think that it will disappoint you.

Thanks for checking out my review!