Dead of Winter

After her husband’s death, Barb sets out to fulfill his last request to have his ashes scattered in Lake Hilda in northern Minnesota, where the two had their first date. During a snowstorm as she drives there, she takes an unintended detour to a nearby cabin, asking a man for directions after she notices blood on the snow that the man attributes to a deer. However, when she reaches the lake, she sees that man pursuing and capturing a young woman with her hands tied. Returning to the cabin to investigate, Barb sees that the woman is tied up in the cabin basement and overhears the man and a woman in purple talking about plans to kill the girl.

Unable to get her truck off the frozen lake due to the snow, Barb sets up her husband’s old hunting gear as a distraction, luring the couple in so that the man falls into a concealed hole she cut in the ice. Unable to get the girl out of the cabin basement, Barb soaks most of the cabin to force the couple to depart, but they return before Barb can leave and she is shot in the arm as she escapes. With the man suffering from hypothermia, Barb is able to sneak back and make a call on their truck’s radio for help, stealing a gun in the process, but the man interrupts her. She learns that his wife is sick and the girl was chosen because of a previous suicide attempt, but Barb convinces the man to drive to the nearest town and get the police before going to the hospital himself.

Barb sets up her truck to explode to draw in more help, and meets a couple of hunters. They take her back to the cabin to try to help the girl, but the woman shoots them both, having already killed her husband, capturing Barb after Barb manages to shoot her in the leg. Stuck in the basement with the girl, Barb learns that the girl’s name is Leah, but their next escape attempt is interrupted when the woman returns and forces them both to accompany her to the lake at gunpoint.

Arriving at a makeshift medical tent in the middle of the lake, Barb and Leah learn that the woman intends to take Leah’s liver and go to another town to meet a surgeon who can transplant Leah’s liver into the woman. Barb is forced to tie Leah up, but deliberately leaves the bonds loose, and is able to take the woman by surprise when her attempt to shoot Barb strikes the box containing her husband’s ashes. As Leah cuts herself free with a nail Barb slipped her earlier, Barb forces the woman out onto the ice, back to the hole she dug previously. With both women wounded, Barb uses the handcuffs that were previously used to keep her trapped to tie herself to the woman and throw them both into the hole in the ice. Barb scatters her husband’s ashes in the lake as they both sink. Leah escapes her bonds and finds an old photograph of Barb and her husband.

Last Updated: October 01, 2025 at 07:54