A blizzard isn’t just weather in Dead of Winter—it’s the kind of character that kills without blinking. Brian Kirk’s latest, unveiled this week at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, drops Emma Thompson into a Minnesotan whiteout and dares her to claw her way back out. The first official trailer from Vertical is all sharp breaths, muffled gunshots, and the hollow quiet that follows. It’s claustrophobia in widescreen.
We open on a grief-stricken loner, Thompson’s face weathered but alert, navigating the backroads near a frozen lake. She stops for help—bad move. Inside a remote cabin waits Judy Greer and Marc Menchaca, armed, tense, and holding a young woman hostage. No cell service. No backup. Just snow, silence, and the awful arithmetic of survival. It’s the kind of setup that feels like Fargo filtered through a kidnap nightmare. And yes—there’s a love story buried in there, at least according to Kirk, though from the trailer it looks like you’d have to dig through a mountain of ice and trauma to find it.
Kirk, whose credits range from 21 Bridges to Game of Thrones, knows how to play with confined spaces and moral pressure. Here, he leans on Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb’s script, turning the Minnesotan wilderness into an emotional meat grinder. The casting’s quietly brilliant: Thompson brings the gravitas, Greer stretches into darker territory, Marc Menchaca has that lived-in menace, and Gaia Wise, Cuan Hosty-Blaney, Dalton Leeb, Paul Hamilton, Lloyd Hutchinson, and Brian F. O’Byrne fill out the snow-glazed edges.
The timing’s curious, too. A snow survival thriller in late September? Counterprogramming, maybe—cooling audiences off as summer’s last heatwave chokes the cities. Or maybe it’s just trusting that tension like this doesn’t care what month it is. And in Locarno, where the mountain air already bites a little, the premiere must have landed like a gut punch.
What sticks with me is how un-showy it all feels. Even the violence in the trailer has a blunt edge, more desperation than choreography. The frost doesn’t sparkle—it smothers. Gorgeous. Grating. Gorgeous again. By the last frame, you’re not sure if you want to book a flight to Minnesota or never see snow again.
Dead of Winter premiered at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland and will open in select U.S. theaters on September 26, 2025, via Vertical.
5 Key Takeaways from the ‘Dead of Winter’ Trailer
Emma Thompson in survival mode – She’s weathered, physically and emotionally, and the trailer lets you feel both.
Judy Greer in a darker role – Far from her usual comic timing, Greer plays armed, desperate, and volatile.
Snow as a weapon – The Minnesotan blizzard isn’t set dressing; it’s part of the threat.
Brian Kirk’s controlled tension – The 21 Bridges and Game of Thrones director keeps the camera tight, the stakes tighter.
Festival-first release strategy – Locarno premiere sets a prestige tone before the September 26 U.S. rollout.
