Cold in July is a 2014 American independent Southern Gothic crime thriller film directed by Jim Mickle, written by Mickle and Nick Damici, and starring Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepard and Don Johnson. The film takes place in 1980s Texas and is based on the novel Cold in July by author Joe R. Lansdale. Hall plays a man who kills a burglar, whose father (Shepard) subsequently seeks revenge. The plot is further complicated when a private investigator (Johnson) shows up.
The project had a long gestation, and production did not begin until seven years after Mickle read the novel. Mickle and Damici had previously written about feminist themes in We Are What We Are (2013) and wanted to cover more masculine themes. Filming took place over 25 days in the Hudson Valley area of New York. It premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. IFC Films theatrically released the film in North America on May 23, 2014, where it grossed $427,418. It was released on DVD on September 30, 2014.
