A Cold Day in Hell (2011)

An ornery businessman named Scarsdale wants to capitalize on the railroad coming to Sweetwater and he has a small army of “company men” to do his dirty work.

They’re ordered to make sure everyone leaves the town. If they refuse to go, they’re to murder everyone in town.

Because, apparently, that’s just what every railroad executive wants: a destination town that’s empty or filled with corpses.

With his town in jeopardy of extinction, Sheriff Thomas Kincaid goes trudging off to the mountains with a religious fellow named Travis (director Christopher Forbes) in search of a former sharpshooter and now recluse named William Drayton (Jim Hilton).

That’s because his lost-long daughter, Elizabeth, once kidnapped by the Indians, shows up holding a book she’s used to track her long-lost dad.

She found the book in a library in which every book looked old and worn … just the way a book from the 1880s would look in 2011.

The trio finds Drayton just as they’ve been ambushed by another group of bad guys. Drayton saves the sheriff and (unfortunately) the director, then saves his about-to-be-ruined daughter’s virtue.

Then, of course, he agrees to join in the fight against Scarsdale.

Jim Hilton as William Drayton, reacting to a friend’s predicament in A Cold Day in Hell (2011)

Stan Fink as Sheriff Thomas Kincaid, an old friend of Will Drayton’s in A Cold Day in Hell (2011)

Review:

Let’s just say it will be a cold day in hell before this finds its way into my DVD player again. You know we’re in trouble in the opening scene. Three cowpokes who look like they’ve come straight out of the costume department, with nary a hint of dirt or dust on their cowpoke get-ups, walk into the most-sparsely stocked trading post you’ve ever seen in a Western. They demand money from a young man working on a hide.

A mysterious bearded fellow, annoyed that he might have to go down the mountain to get his supplies, pulls his pistol. Three cap-gun noises later, and the baddies are dead. The crumple to the floor as though they never even played a good game of cowboys and Indians growing up.

And so our not-so-wild ride begins with actors who act as though they’ve never appeared in as much as a community theater production, with a muddled script and with the worst special effects money can buy. How bad is it? The best special effect is the smoking gun on the menu screen of the DVD.

A hint to directors of future Westerns: If the only interesting plot twist in the entire movie is having the hero’s daughter hide sticks of dynamites in bouquets of flowers so her dad can shoot them and blow up the bad guys, make sure your budget allows for real explosions, not just a puff of smoke.

Judging by the DVD cover, you’d think Michael Madsen was the star of this flick. Instead, he has the minor role of U.S. Marshal Starlings, who sits in a bar drinking and grumbling about Scarsdale. He has one of his men infiltrate the Scarsdale gang … and then does nothing about it.

Grade Z drivel. Though Heather Clark’s smile — she plays Will Drayton’s long-lost daughter — will light up your TV screen.

Heather Clark as Elizabeth Drayton, enjoying a long-awaited reunion with her father in A Cold Day in Hell (2011)

Michael Madsen as U.S. Marshal Stallings, a lawman in cahoots with Scarsdale in A Cold Day in Hell (2011)

Directed by:
Christopher Forbes

Cast:
Jim Hilton … William Drayton
Heather Clark … Elizabeth Drayton
Stan Fink … Sheriff Thomas Kincaid
Christopher Forbes … Travis
Dave Long … Scarsdale
Michael Madsen … U.S. Marshal Stallings
Richard Kinsey … Swede
Amanda Hilton … Amanda
Debra Carlsen … Miss Sophie

Runtime: 95 min.

Dave Long as Scarsdale, offering $3,000 for Drayton’s trigger finger in A Cold Day in Hell (2011)

Michael Hilton as Wade Miller, one of the leaders among Scarsdale’s henchmen in A Cold Day in Hell (2011)

Memorable lines:

William Drayton, to daughter Elizabeth: “I had to keep looking for you. I’d make up stories about lost calves. I’d go out for days. Come back and tell her (his wife) sometime about wolves. God love her. We didn’t even have any calves.”