Do we know much about the culture of Norway, that slab of land that stretches from the North Sea up near the Arctic Circle? With no means to cause offence, the country isn’t famous for a helluva lot. Images immediately conjured up when one thinks of the place include herring, fjords and limited daylight hours.

Worry not, for this rather drab portrait can only be brightened by the fact that the country produced one of the most atmospheric slasher pics in recent memory, which also teaches us Norway has a lot of snow and therefore skiers and such.

Yes, Contender #1 is Cold Prey, or Fritt Vilt as shown here, the super high-tension cloud-of-dread neo-masterpiece of teenkill horror that pitts five stranded snowboarders against a fur-clad primal killer when they are forced to spend a night in an abandoned ski lodge. This rivals Haute Tension for the crown of most nail-biting stalk n’ slasher so far this century – but doesn’t have the same dumb twist.

Moving from the fjords and herring of Norway to the once great shores of Great Britain, but a pebble’s throw away to meet Contender #2, our very own Coldplay.

Now, Coldplay emerged on to ‘the scene’ several years back, shooting to fame with an endless array of drippy ballads such as ‘Yellow’ and ‘Clocks’; the kind of songs that, if sung by, say, Alanis Morissette, would have been minor footnotes in the British charts and likely criticised for being too whingey and whiny. But when you’re a quartet of blokes with a conventionally handsome leading man, you can moan all you want and Radio 1 will kiss your feet and declare you the best band ever.

Can you tell who’s going to win yet?

Premise: Cold Prey adopts a simple, back to basics approach and garnishes it with cold, claustophobic photography and an emphasis on the complexities of character relations over horny teens having sex.

Coldplay lean towards pianoey ballads with poetry-like lyrics and a lot of metaphors.

Originality: We’ve seen Iced and Shredder so we know that 80% of the primary cast members are no longer going to exist after 95 minutes.

Jo Whiley said Coldplay had a ‘definitive sound’. This actually meant that Speed of Sound was a carbon copy of Clocks and she didn’t want to look stupid by endorsing them after moaning for so many years that most pop groups’ output ‘all sounds the same’.

Violence: Make no mistake about it, Cold Prey gets brutal when it wants to. The first kill is especially terrifying (not least for the victim), but after this there’s no excessive bloodshed.

Listening to Coldplay may well induce outbursts of homicidal violence.

Leader: Jannicke is the sensible, kind final girl in Cold Prey. She loves her boyfriend and is nice to Morten, the dude who’s had the Jones for her since, like, forever. She kicks the killer’s ass when necessary.

Chris Martin seems like a nice fella, but bland, mind. Does anybody know the names of the other three?

Outcome: Cold Prey ‘borrows’ heavily from a scene in Hostel for it’s finale, but I was literally screaming at the TV for Jannicke to do what a (final) girl’s gotta do!

Coldplay are still going.

Spawn: Frit Vilt II is just as scary, taking the olde Halloween II route of moving both FG and killer to a near deserted hospital for further stalkage. One of those rare sequels that matches the first film’s quality.

Chris Martin has a child named Apple.

Victor:

Well that wasn’t at all obvious…