Dead of Winter

IMDb
A fledgling actress is lured to a remote mansion for a screen-test, soon discovering she is actually a prisoner in the middle of a blackmail plot.


Rotten Tomatoes

MOVIE INFO

Though it is not so noted on the credits, Dead of Winter is a re-working of the 1945 film My Name is Julia Ross. Mary Steenburgen stars as a struggling actress who is summoned by mysterious "talent agent" Roddy McDowell. She agreesto meet equally shady "producer" Jan Rubes in his remoteupstate New York mansion. Once there, she finds herself trapped in the house and completely cut off from the outside world; she is also stripped of her driver's license, credit cards, and all vestiges of her true identity. It seems that Steenburgen is the exact double of a murdered woman, and that Steenburgen is expected to pose as that woman as part of a blackmailing scheme concocted by McDowall and Rubes. When Mary breaks free and tries to summon help, the authorities are informed that she is a mental patient under the care of "doctor" Rubes. The original My Name is Julia Ross ran less than 70 minutes. Dead of Winter is stretched out for 100 minutes, a bit too long to sustain its suspense throughout, but the plot device is still a viable one.

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