Cold in July is the fourth and best cinematic offering from director Jim Mickle and his regular co-writer Frank Damici. Their previous works, particularly the apocalyptic Stake Land and the bizarrely touching We Are What We Are, hinted strongly that this was a creative pair on the ascendant, and Cold in July is the film where everything comes together.
Based on the novel by genre bending Joe R. Lansdale (you might know his work from other adaptations such as Bubba Ho-Tep and the Masters of Horror episode, Incident On and Off a Mountain Road) Cold in July is astoundingly faithful to the spirit of its source material. Set in 1989, this is a film that oozes ‘80s cinematic nostalgia from its synth score to its subdued neo-noir pacing.
Near the end of the review Jones makes mention of a forthcoming Mickle-Lansdale project.
Mickle recently announced that he was developing Lansdale’s Hap Collins and Leonard Pine novels for television. If that series is as well-crafted and as respectful to the books as Cold in July, then we’re all in for a Southern fried treat.
In conjunction with the series, next year Tachyon is publishing the first ever collection of the shorter Hap and Leonard stories.
Cold in Julythe movie, starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice), is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray.
Cold In July — Easily the most “indie” of the smaller counter-programming films on this list, and a very welcome summer surprise. Feeling like an early Coen Brothers movie adapting an Elmore Leonard novel, it’s actually directed by Jim Mickle and based on Joe R. Lansdale’s book of the same name. Featuring a top-notch cast and a story that suddenly pivots into a completely different, unexpected story you don’t see coming, Cold in July was a tense dramatic thriller for adults in the middle of blockbuster season driven by a lot of effects-laden escapism. Not that such escapism is bad, and indeed several such films are on this list; but it’s always great to see films willing to take a chance on decidedly non-Summer-blockbuster tales, and in fact go outside the box of typical summer counter-programming. It’s one of my favorites of the year, and the sort you rarely see these days.
Cold in Julythe movie, starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice), is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray.
Originally published in 1989, the book is now published by Tachyon Publishing as a tie in to the movie starring Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepard, and Don Johnson. The read is incredibly good. If the movie closely follows the book, and one gets the idea it will from the forward written by film director Jim Mickle and the afterword from the author, it should be one heck of a movie. Cold In July is one heck of a read and very much worthy of your time.
For more information about Cold in July, visit the Tachyon page.
Over at Bleeding Cool, Brendon Connelly interviewed Jim Mickle about Cold in July and Joe R. Lansdale.
And now he’s seen Cold in July…?
He’s seen it three or four times. It’s been an interesting experience. He was on set for maybe three or four weeks and saw a lot of it being shot, he was there for Don’s first day and all that kind of stuff. But it was terrifying the first time I sat behind him. It was a screening at Sundance in a giant theater there, with 1500 seats or something. In many ways, sitting behind him for that screening was the most nerve wracking experience. We’d changed a lot of things and taken shots at trying to nail his tone and style, having to mix elements up to make that work. The first time he was like “It’s good, it’s good” but later on he said little things like “I think next time we should make sure the characters stick a little more to my dialogue… I think next time they should have a little less flexibility to improvise things.” That kind of thing, and he’s totally right about.
We just had a screening in Santa Fe, the fourth time he watched it. He said “The first time I watched it I liked it, but it was surreal and I couldn’t really form an opinion. Now I’ve seen it four times I really like it.”
It was a similar thing with Michael. I sat with him the first time he watched it and there’s a process… even for myself it’s hard to know if you like it like it because you’re so close to it. I need distance.
<snip>
So, you say you went for his tone but what is that? Can you describe that tone to me?
That’s hard. Well… it’s funny. There’s a harsh sense of humour that runs through it. But a part of his tone is that he can go all over the place. Bubba Ho-Tep, which most people know him from, was crazy and over the top. Then he has this book Acts of Love and the first time I read it I thought “I can’t believe I know this guy” because it’s so dark. It’s so dark. It came at a time in his career when he wanted to shock audiences. Cold in July, I think, is somewhere right in the middle with doses of the over-the-top sense of humour but also doses of an emotional, gut-punch vibe.
Part of Joe’s work is that it’s all over the place but there’s still that old-fashioned storytelling quality, and a sense of humour that can undercut the stories but other times enhance the moment. And there’s a real love of 50s style things, and Westerns make their way into all of his stuff. He says that he used to come up with stories, maybe not any more but Cold in July and others, by eating popcorn his wife would make for him before bed. She’d put a lot of lard in that would give him dreams.
Cold in Julythe movie, starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice), is currently playing in theaters and on VOD.
It’s a masterful exercise in suspense – a classic pulp narrative unfolding with violence and intrigue. We were curious to know what Lansdale thought of the film and the way in which the original incarnation of the story played out on screen, so we called him up for a chat.
VICE: How did Cold In July come about when you first wrote it? Lansdale: When I wrote the novel I had just become a father for the first time. My son was the same age as the character Richard Dane’s son in the novel. It started with a visit to look at a new house where there happened to be a bullet hole in the ceiling. That night I went home and dreamt this sequence – every hour or so I’d wake up and have to wash my face down. It was a strange gift handed to me. All these factors must have been boiling in my subconscious. I never tell anyone stories while I’m working on them, but this time I told my wife.
It’s strange that it literally came to you in a dream. It was probably the most literal dream I’ve ever had. All of the strange, oddball characters were already there – all I had to do was give them dialogue and add a few odds and ends.
Cold in Julythe movie, starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice), is currently playing in theaters and on VOD.
Lansdale’s plot begins in parallel with David Cronenberg’s A History Of Violence — they have a shared debt to a certain type of 1950s man-alone-against-outlaws Western — and both versions of Cape Fear, but a major reversal triggered by the actions of a too-smooth-to-trust cop (Damici) sends the story in an unexpected direction.
On the movie itself:
A character-driven thriller with more twists than an off-the-map dirt road, awards-quality performances from the three leads, a rare sensitivity to the after-effects of horror and a sure directorial hand. Mickle and Damici officially segue from ‘promising’ to ‘delivering’.
Cold in Julythe movie, starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice), is currently playing in theaters and on VOD.
For newcomers to his short fiction, the most pleasant revelation will be the different types of stories Williams has written over the years. In “The Old Scale Game,” a fairly recent work, an aging knight confronts an equally aging dragon and the two traditional adversaries enter into a mutual partnership. This contemporary spin on a familiar setting allows Williams to express a sly warning to those who see the fantasy field as nothing more than a cash cow.
Contrast this with “Not With A Whimper” where a group of readers debate online the merits of fantasy versus science fiction until their exchange is interrupted by power surges. The source of the surges, the debaters discover, is an artificial intelligence struggling with its new-found consciousness and powers. Williams presents the entire story in a near cyber-punk style of coded posted messages.
<clip>
Of the far too many authors cramming the fantasy field with seemingly endless series, only a few are genuinely worthy of our time. THE VERY BEST OF TAD WILLIAMS proves that he is among this select company, and may also cause some to drastically re-evaluate the talents of this prolific and popular author, and discover his other equally satisfying works.
For the rest of the Cranis review, which includes coverage of several of the other stories in the collection, visit Bookgasm.
One of the benefits of COLD IN JULY being made into an independent movie (adapted by screenwriter/actor Nick Damici and directed by Jim Mickle) is this new, movie tie-in edition from Tachyon, Joe R. Landsdale’s publisher. So now this early work from one of America’s finest storytellers – first published in 1989 and nearly impossible to find since – is once again available. That’s wonderful news not only for the legion of Lansdale fans but also for those who love a finely told crime story.
<snip>
This new edition is further enhanced by an original forward by director Jim Mickle, and a new afterword by Lansdale himself. Mickle recalls what first attracted him to the novel and the many false-starts his adaptation suffered along the way to completion. Lansdale reveals the events that planed the seed of the story in his unconscious, and how it seemed to flow full-borne from his mind to his typewriter when he finally devoted himself to the story.
Lansdale also comments how happy he is to see a new edition of this novel back in print after so long a time. That’s true for us readers as well.
Regardless if you plan to see the movie or not, now’s your chance to fill that gap in your Lansdale collection — or finally get one started.
Cold in Julythe movie, starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice), is currently playing in theaters and on VOD.
Cold in Julythe movie, which recently played at Cannes and opens in theaters and VOD on May 23, and the original novel, currently available at all finer booksellers, continue to garner praise.
Recent reviews of the book:
“The read is incredibly good. If the movie closely follows the book, and one gets the idea it will from the forward written by film director Jim Mickle and the afterword from the author, it should be one heck of a movie. Cold In Julyis one heck of a read and very much worthy of your time.” —Kevin’s Corner
“In the Afterword, Joe R. Lansdale says, "No novel has ever come to me more full-blown than Cold In July.” The end result is a perfect story, well-told, start to finish. I enjoyed every word.“ —Horror-Web Cesspool
And for the movie:
”[I]t’s a gripper from start to finish, because of Mickle’s lean style, and because it’s impossible to know in the first five minutes where the movie will end up.“ —Los Angeles Times
"In “Cold in July” — starring Michael C. Hall as Dane, Sam Shepard as his victim’s vengeful father and Don Johnson as a pig-farming private eye — Mr. Mickle, 34, uses blood to punctuate psychological horrors in a film with a literary heart and more mainstream allure.” —The New York Times
“For reasons which passeth understanding, cinema has long overlooked Texas-born crime writer Joe R Lansdale. His books are lean, grimly comical and packed with the sort of sudden violence, boisterous anti-heroism and crackling dialogue that Hollywood producers claim to love, but somehow, short of the atypical ‘Bubba Ho-Tep’, his work has remained un-adapted – until now. ‘Cold in July’ is Lansdale in excelsis, a relentless tale of small-town treachery spiralling into bloody vengeance. And in the hands of ‘We Are What We Are’ director Jim Mickle, it’s become one of the year’s best indie thrillers.” —Time Out London
“Who is who shifts and as much as Jim Mickle tickles us in Cold In July with conventions, he also molds his very own imposing scenes to add to the genre. A close-up of a painting in a living room at night in East Texas in 1989 sets the mood in his inventive fathers and sons, gangsters and detectives thriller. Three unlikely male Charlie’s Angels transcend revenge.” —Eye For Film
“Michael C. Hall brings a shell-shocked vulnerability to his portrayal of Dane that contrasts perfectly with the grizzled "badasses” portrayed by Sam Shepard and Don Johnson. Directed with an excellent eye for the visual poetry of noir, this pulpy, southern-fried mystery is a throwback to an older breed of action films; one where every punch and shotgun blast opens up both physical and spiritual wounds. Cold in July is hard to shake as an east Texas summer.“ —Broadway World
Cold in Julythe movie, starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice), hits theaters and VOD on May 23.
The 19 features that will make up what looks like a particularly strong Directors’ Fortnight sidebar at the Cannes Film Festival were revealed this morning in Paris with a hefty dose of genre in the mix.
<snip>
Jim Mickle‘s Sundance pic Cold In July with Michael C. Hall as a small town Texas man who kills a home intruder and finds his life unraveling into a dark underworld of corruption and violence. This is the second year in a row that Mickle is appearing in the Fortnight following a bow in Sundance.
On May 20 in commemoration of the movie’s general release, Tachyon delivers the official movie tie-in edition of the original novel, complete with an introduction by director Jim Mickle and an afterword by Joe R. Lansdale, his ownself.
Cold in Julythe movie, starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice), hits theaters and VOD on May 23.
