Nerds That Geek Movie Review: 'Cold Moon'

Written by Scott Edwards

Small towns are some of the greatest places on earth, just ask anyone that lives in one. Being able to leave your doors unlocked, knowing everyone in town and knowing who the trouble makers are, there is not much better. But there can be an underbelly to these benefits, especially when something bad happens. When you have the usual suspects for the petty things, what happens when someone is murdered, and the killer does not leave a shred of evidence? This is something that Cold Moon outlines very well, along with the fact that you need to keep an eye on those heavy boozers.
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Trying to keep his grandma from seeing all of the past due notices from the bank, Jerry Larkin is worried that the next blueberry batch will not be enough to keep the farm much longer. Seeing that this is very upsetting to her grandchildren, Evelyn is just happy that they are still a family and will do what she can to get the bank to grant another extension on the loan. Wanting to head out for the day, young Margaret Larkin gets permission to head into town and help out her favorite teacher at school. As long as she is home before dark, there is no problem from Evelyn, but as the hours pass, the old woman starts to worry that something bad has happened.

As the following day comes about and there are still no signs of Margaret, Evelyn and Jerry finally get the sheriff involved in the hunt, but he is not needed when a local fisherman pulls the young girl’s body from the river. Being beside herself, Evelyn cannot calm down from the loss of her granddaughter and is given a sedative that releases a vision in her mind that helps her know exactly who killed her. But there is a problem with this, as the man Evelyn names is Nathan Redfield who not only runs the bank, but owns most of the town and nobody will look into the claims. Telling the sheriff what his grandmother believes, Sheriff Tom has some news for Jerry as well and the news that Margaret was with child when she was killed opens a sinister box that nobody in town wants to see.

With nobody in town willing to look into her claims, Evelyn Larkin is forced to look for some outside help and finds a lawyer in the town over. Hearing this news distresses Nathan who believed he had a good thing going and after heading out on a booze run, he returns home and gets his little brother Ben to join him on a little venture. Being able to flag down Jerry’s car with his grandmother inside, Nathan has his shot to put this ludicrous story to rest. Killing off the remaining Larkin’s and dumping them in the river, along with planting the murder weapon on the school teacher, Nathan has no idea that with all of his power and connections that the trusted Sheriff Ted would be looking to him for answers, but he is.

Pretty good story about power, money and deceit when all was said and done. Watching as Nathan knows of ways to make the problems go away, he is shocked when anyone would question him, since he has kept his motive very quiet over the past few days. Sheriff Ted Hale really did a bang up job at following all of the clues that were left throughout the hunt for a killer, even when they seemed to be leading him in the wrong direction. The only thing that I found a little bit off about the storyline is that nobody checked anything for fingerprints, I know this was taking place in 1989, but there was still finger print technology back then. With a murder, a mystery, an affair, an old Christopher Lloyd, a family promise, greed, cover-ups and a sheriff that is a little bit smarter than the villain thought, this is a pretty good way to kill ninety minutes. I enjoyed that some of our greatest vices were highlighted and it is important to take note that none of these are worth killing for.

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