Cold Heart Canyon (2008) is a direct-to-DVD offering that was probably
intended for a spot on the erotic thriller shelf. Aubrey Caldwell moves to
Laurel Canyon to get over her divorce, and meets an attractive couple, Will
Lupardus and Lee Anne Davis. The three end up in a ménage a trois, and
then Caldwell and Lupardus get serious. Lee Anne Davis disappears, but while
Lupardus is away on business, another man shows up, claims to be a police
officer, and convinces her that Lupardus is a killer.
The budget is given at approximately $50k, which is amazing. That's not
much money to produce a feature-length film, even assuming that all the
performers and crew work for food, the locations are all stolen, the
entire film is shot on video, and the 90 minute runtime includes 12 minutes of repeat footage for padding.
And yet, despite that economic miracle, you would make a much better film
if you had $50,000.
Even if you left the lens-cap on.
Cold Heart Canyon is as light on erotica as it is on thrills. The
performers, while uniformly attractive, are also uniformly bad. It's currently
rated 2.0 at IMDb, but that is based on only 19 votes. I suspect it will
settle in a little lower when all votes are counted.
If you are not familiar with our grading system, you need to
read the
explanation, because the grading is not linear. For example, by
our definition, a
C is solid and a C+ is a VERY good movie. There are very few Bs
and As. Based on our descriptive system, this film is an:
