Vertigo Releasing has debuted the UK trailer for Dead of Winter, Brian Kirk’s (“Game of Thrones”, “Luther”, “Dexter”, 21 Bridges) icy, nerve-jangling thriller that refuses to leave warmth behind entirely. Beneath the white-knuckle tension lies something rare in the survival genre: a quietly beautiful love story. UK and Irish audiences won’t have to wait much longer now as the film is set to storm into cinemas on September 26th.
Penned by Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb, the film stars Emma Thompson, Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Laurel Marsden, and Brían F. O’Byrne. Already drawing buzz since its world premiere in the Piazza Grande section of the 78th Locarno Film Festival earlier this month, the film is being hailed as both brutally suspenseful and unexpectedly moving.
Set in the epic snowbound wilderness of northern Minnesota, Thompson takes the lead as Barb, a grieving widow making a pilgrimage to scatter her late husband’s ashes where their story first began. But what starts as a deeply personal journey quickly veers into nightmare territory when Barb—stranded by a vicious blizzard—discovers a remote cabin hiding a sinister secret. Inside: a young woman held captive by an unhinged couple, played with menacing precision by Greer and Menchaca.
Isolated in the endless snow, Barb discovers that love and memory may be the sharpest weapons she has to outwit her captors. Thompson, long a master of emotional gravitas, looks primed for a career-redefining turn—one that fuses raw vulnerability with an iron resilience. The trailer conjures Misery by way of The Revenant — only here, even in the dead of winter, love won’t be buried.
