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Snowy Double Features: Movie Pairings for Wintry Nights

Snowed in?

Polar Vortex got you down?

Well, drop your shovel, kick off your boots, light a fire, and snuggle up to these chilly double features in which the mercury is always frozen.

These are movie pairings to chase away your wintertime blues…or remind you that, perhaps, your particular blues aren’t so bad after all.


The Shining (1980) & Misery (1990)

The ultimate snowbound nightmares, both from the twisted mind of Stephen King. In Stanley Kubrick’s epic adaptation of The Shining, a recovering alcoholic (Jack Nicholson), his fragile wife (Shelley Duvall) and their young psychic son are trapped inside the haunted Overlook Hotel in the middle of a brutal Colorado winter. Deranged daddy slowly succumbs to cabin fever and the supernatural lure of the hotel, and eventually comes at his family with an axe. In Misery, ex-Meathead Rob Reiner directs William Goldman’s screenplay of King’s novel about a successful writer (James Caan) held hostage in a secluded Maine house by his psychotic number one fan (Kathy Bates, who memorably won an Oscar). When she learns the author has killed off her favorite literary character, she forces him to write the book that will resurrect her…and when he tries to escape, it’s hobbling time!

Fargo (1996) & A Simple Plan (1998)

Both films feature a similar central MacGuffin and backdrop—a bag of loot stashed in the snow. The quirky and macabre Fargo is among the Coen Brothers’ best films, set in the barren whited-out badlands and featuring an Oscar-winning turn by Frances McDormand as a small-town cop on the trail of a pair of ruthless killers. Sam Raimi’s low-key A Simple Plan is the tragic story of what happens when the seeds of mistrust are sown among a tight group of friends and family who can’t keep a secret.

Let the Right One In (2008) & 30 Days of Night (2007)

Two different takes on vampire lore, tied together by a shared backdrop of a harsh icy landscape. The somber Swedish film Let the Right One In (remade for U.S. audiences as the equally good Let Me In in 2010) is a haunting and poignant winter’s tale of a shy, bullied boy who befriends a little girl who’s actually an ancient bloodsucker. In the Alaskan-set thriller 30 Days of Night, sheriff Josh Hartnett does battle with a gang of thirsty vampires during a month-long stretch without sunshine.


Die Hard 2 (1990) & Cliffhanger (1993)

Both of these high-octane actioners will remind you why Finnish director Renny Harlin was once a reliable go-to guy for ’80s-style action flicks in the 1990s. The first sequel to Die Hard is the one most similar to the original, with the main characters trapped in and above Dulles International Airport during a Christmastime blizzard. In Cliffhanger, Sylvester Stallone found his best non-Rocky/non-Rambo role as a mountain ranger who faces off against nasty John Lithgow and his gang of high-tech thieves as they search the snowy Rockies for a dropped cargo of cash.

Alive (1993) & The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Mother Nature herself is the villain in these two radically different winter tales. Alive is based on the true story of the stranded survivors of a plane crash in the Andes who resorted to cannibalism to survive. In Roland Emmerich’s silly disaster flick The Day After Tomorrow, cataclysmic climate change wreaks sudden frozen havoc across the globe, and the movie memorably turns Manhattan into a giant block of ice.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) & For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Skiing, Mister Bond? These two classic 007 adventures are more closely related than even the most ardent fans realize, but most obviously they both take terrific advantage of their snowy locales with some of the most insane downhill racing and icy bobsledding action ever captured on film. OHMSS is a reminder of the olden days when Bond’s mission would lead to a single main destination (Switzerland) and he’d stay there for most of the movie. Typically for latter-day Bond, FYEO is a bit more globe-trotting, but its winter set pieces in Cortina d’Ampezzo are exponentially wilder…and the rear-projection effects are far less cheesy.

The Thing (1982) & The Thing From Another World (1951)

You’ll be forgiven a sense of icy déjà vu, since the gory John Carpenter version is an outright remake of the sparse black-and-white Howard Hawkes classic. Nothing compares to Rob Bottin’s ooey-gooey makeup effects that highlight the 1982 version, but both movies will get under your skin with the creepy-crawly terror of an alien parasite hiding amongst a group of men isolated in a remote polar outpost.

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