Osgood Perkins’ directorial debut February is the kind of film that’s hard to pin down at first. Primarily taking place at an all-girls’ prep school, it starts off as a sort of teen drama dealing with student drama and a possible pregnancy. At the same time, a second narrative introduces an element of mystery in how it connects to the main storyline at the school. The one thing Perkins seems painfully and obnoxiously intent on is establishing that something sinister is lurking underneath his film’s underexposed surface, with a strand of supernatural horror pulsing just below every scene. Perkins deliberately designs his film to keep the truth hidden, but as each layer peels back it becomes apparent that February is a very, very dumb movie. And it’s all the more insulting because Perkins clearly thinks he’s being clever with his vague dialogue, grating sound design and playfulness with form. There’s nothing wrong with a stupid film, but there is a problem when a stupid film acts like it’s the smartest one in the room.

Split into three sections, each centered around one of the film’s three female protagonists (a choice that’s entirely superfluous, given that each part frequently switches between POVs). The main plot of February focuses on prep school students Rose (Lucy Boynton) and Kat (Kiernan Shipka). It’s winter break at their school, but neither of their parents have shown up. For Rose, it’s not a surprise; she purposely lied about the pick up date to her parents so she could deal with her boyfriend over a pregnancy scare. Kat’s parents, on the other hand, haven’t shown up for some sort of reason. A vague dream sequence alludes to her parents dying in some sort of accident, but how a teenager can hide that fact from her school never gets addressed. The third person in this story is Joan (Emma Roberts), who recently left a hospital and wants to head to the town next to the school. She gets offered a ride from Bill (James Remar) and Linda (Lauren Holly), a religious couple who happen to be headed in the same direction.

Did Perkins just marathon David Lynch and Nicolas Winding Refn movies in order to prepare for his debut? It certainly feels like it, given his liking for overlong pauses in conversations and low, rumbling sounds that only get higher in volume as every exchange keeps going. It’s a cheap attempt to throw some dark undertones over plenty of vague and banal lines of dialogue, lines specifically designed to enhance the aura of mystery. Sometimes, it works; scenes between Joan and Bill early on can feel legitimately menacing because of its ambiguity (it’s hard to tell which one is predator or prey, and Remar and Roberts do a great job at keeping the lines blurred). But Perkins uses this method in almost every scene, which ruins the impact. After getting beaten over the head with “Something’s wrong!” over and over again, it doesn’t take long to stop caring as the tension (quickly) gives way to dullness.

And once Perkins finally shows the hand he’s been keeping close to his chest, it doesn’t come as a big surprise that he was poorly bluffing the entire time. There’s a twist with the Joan storyline in how it fits in with Rose and Kat, but anyone paying a bit of attention to the editing (where loud, sudden flashbacks function as annoying jump scares) should be able to figure the whole thing out before Perkins begins revealing things. The same goes for the supernatural elements that finally creep their way into Kat’s section of the film, but it’s handled so poorly it can feel more like an afterthought than a revelation (the film also has the honour of including one of the lamest exorcism scenes in ages). It isn’t until the very end that Perkins finally brings his main theme to the surface, showing that February is a film about loss, and the desire to find someone (or something) to replace what’s gone. That could have made for an interesting idea when combined with the horror genre; it’s just too bad Perkins decided to dress it all up in a misguided attempt to be clever.

Cold Comes the Night is the sophomore effort from indie director Tze Chun, who teams up with Nick Simon and Osgood Perkins on a screenplay about a single mother who is forced into criminal activities for the well being of her child. A brisk 90-minute runtime keeps the film from feeling overlong, however, characters are still allowed to make too many bad decisions within its duration. Cold Comes the Night remains mostly forgettable despite its efforts to be something a little more substantial.

Set in an isolated town near the Catskill Mountains, a single mother named Chloe (Alice Eve) prepares breakfast for her adorable daughter Sophia (Ursula Parker) in what appears to be just an ordinary kitchen. But as soon as the camera catches a glimpse out the window, it reveals that the two are actually living in a low-rent motel that Chloe manages. Because drug dealers and prostitutes mainly use this motel, social service decides to step in by threatening to take away her child if the two do not relocate to a safer environment within two weeks. Chloe is determined to keep her child and is willing to do whatever it takes to do so.

Enter Bryan Cranston as a Russian mobster named Topo. As fate would have it, Topo spends a night at the sketchy motel during a money-mule operation. An unexpected incident occurs overnight that threatens the operation when the vehicle carrying the large sum of cash ends up in the hands of a crooked local cop (Logan Marshall-Green). In order to help retrieve his money, the man sporting red shades forces Chloe to track down the vehicle and promises to split the money with her.

If this sounds like the setup for a standard crime thriller, that’s because it is. And when the film stays within those parameters it tends to work. There is absolutely nothing wrong with attempting to spice up a genre, but in some cases while doing so it comes across as trying too hard. Unfortunately, this is occasionally the case with Cold Comes the Night. It seems as if the film tries to separate itself from other crime thrillers by having one of its leads be damn-near blind (Cranston), but it only results in a gimmicky plot device. A couple other questionable choices were made such as needlessly showing the end of the film at the beginning.

Appearing in one of his first roles since retiring from one of the greatest shows in television (Breaking Bad), Cranston returns to a character here that is not completely different from Walter White. Specifically, he is a cold-hearted killer on a mission to accumulate money and just so happens to do some good deeds along the way. The major differences between his characters are his fake Russian accent and his inability to see clearly, which only enough make one wonder if these embellishments were simply done to distinguish him from the notorious character that he is most known for.

Cold Comes the Night is a B-movie by its very definition—a lower budgeted film with little publicity or intention to reach the widest of audiences—and the film works best when it stays inside the confines of the genre, even if it becomes predictable and contrived while doing so. Cold Comes the Night succeeds in capturing the dark and eerie mood not through the tinted lenses of Cranston’s character, but from the rundown motel milieu. Unfortunately, the film becomes it own worst enemy.

Cold Comes the Night trailer