So Cold the River

This haunting horror/drama in the mold of "The Shining" is the rare film set and shot in Indiana. It debuts in theaters March 25 and is on demand March 29.

Hoosiers are used to it by now.

A movie or show is set in Indiana — “Parks and Recreation,” “Stranger Things,” “The Fault in Our Stars” — only to be shot somewhere else. It’s understandable; we just don’t have the infrastructure or enticements to lure major productions (though here’s hoping new tax incentives will move the needle).

So when a movie version of the best-selling novel by Bloomington native Michael Koryta was announced, we were ready for yet another Pennsylvania or Georgia location to sub in for the horror/crime story set in French Lick, specifically at the West Baden Springs Hotel.

It’s a mammoth, gothic domed cathedral of a building in the middle of Indiana farmland, best known as where Larry Bird (“the hick from French Lick”) grew up. So it seemed impossible that Hollywood could fake it with some other backdrop.

Luckily, they didn’t try. It will have its premiere in French Lick Friday, and be available on VOD platforms next Tuesday.

I’m pleased to say that, shot in Indiana or not, “So Cold” is a first-rate horror/drama in the mold of “The Shining.” It’s extremely moody and creepy, the sort of flick that crawls under your skin and keeps you itching.

Bethany Joy Lenz plays Erica Shaw, a celebrated documentary filmmaker now languishing doing wedding and funeral videos. Known for inserting herself into her investigations, it came back to bite her when a young man she helped get sprung from prison wound up truly being the killer everyone thought.

Low on cash and prospects, she accepts a job from a mysterious woman (Alysia Reiner) to make a movie about her father, Campbell Bradford, who is very old and about to pass. There’s a lot of mystery and darkness surrounding his name from when he lived in the area, and she wants to learn more.

Her interview with the man is unnerving, as he seems unconscious but speaks to her in a cackling taunt, but only when she’s looking through her camera. Erica is also given a strange blue bottle of Pluto brand spring water that Campbell carried with him when he departed for Chicago decades earlier.

“What have you done?” he demands of her, both question and warning.

She arrives at the hotel and is impressed by the architecture, but a bit put off by the locals. Dylan (Kevin Cahoon), the toadying concierge, suggests she partake in the healing spring water baths and the upcoming “festival of rebirth,” an annual event celebrating the hotel’s reconstruction after burning down in 1902 — for the second time.

He’s just a little too friendly. Imagine Kenneth from “30 Rock” by way of “Dexter.”

There’s also Anne (a terrific Deanna Dunagan), a wiseacre older woman who likes to hang around the hotel bar, drink and share stories. She knows a lot about Campbell — more than she’s willing to say. Erica also bumps into Josiah (Andrew J. West), a smoldering maintenance worker with a personal connection to the Bradford legend.

Katie Sarife plays Kellyn, a young intern who arrives to help and turns out to be a fangirl of her previous work.

As Erica delves deeper and deeper into the shroud of mystery surrounding the place, she starts having dreams and waking visions. There’s a dark man with a bowler hat and mustache at the center of them, occasionally joined by a young boy playing a mournful violin.

The musical score by Ariel Marx is wonderfully expressive and adds to the pervasive mood of death and decay.

Adapted for the screen and directed by Paul Shoulberg, “So Cold the River” is really impressive from a technical standpoint. A lot of lower-budget films tend to have limited camera movement and standard perspective, but Shoulberg keeps us looking at things from odd vantage points that add to the movie’s unsettled nature. Cinematographer Madeline Kate Kann’s work has a confident polish to it.

This isn’t a straight-up gorefest, though there’s certainly enough blood and mayhem to warrant its R rating. I’m not sure if you’d call this a horror film or a supernatural thriller — all I know is it’s definitely scary as hell.

One might even wonder why the hotel agreed to let such a blood-curdling movie be shot there; might be bad for business. But sometimes ghost stories are the ones that most stick with us.