‘Cold Skin’ opens in theaters on Friday October 20

La pell freda, or Cold Skin in English, will bring chilling horror and old-world sci-fi to theaters in Catalonia from Friday October 20. The movie has already received a positive reception at international film festivals after it made its debut at September’s Étrange Film Festival in Paris. This month, it has made its way home to the Sitges Film Festival. La Pell Freda is, in fact, an adaptation of Catalan writer Albert Sánchez Piñol’s hit debut novel.

Us versus them

The plot follows a young former soldier who, trying to distance himself from the recently ended World War I, takes up work on a secluded island near the Antarctic Circle. Yet, when Frank arrives on the island he finds a deranged man is the only other inhabitant. Or so Frank thinks - until night falls. What follows is an ‘us versus them’ tale, a mix of action and horror shown through a war between monsters and humans. This is, according to starring actress Aura Garrido, an analogy for how we “face the unknown.”  

Garrido, who plays one of the creatures, stated that human beings approach what is alien “from a place of fear and mistrust,” which then leads to “violence.” She explained the value in taking the time to “listen, observe, and understand” that what is in front of us “may not be as different as we perceived it to be.”