Sometimes the simplest ideas for films are the best. And sometimes, it's just downright strange when a film comes along with such a simple plot, you can't believe it hasn't been done before. Or at the very least, you haven't seen it. Frozen covers all these bases.
From the director of the Hatchet films (the first one being one of my favourite horror films in years), Adam Green, Frozen tells the story of three friends Parker (Emma Bell), her boyfriend Dan (Kevin Zegers) and their friend Joe (Shawn Ashmore) who, whilst at a ski resort fall a bit low on funds and bribe the ski lift operator to take them up one last time. Once up there, confusion abounds on the ground leaving the skiers abandoned extremely high up with not much chance of rescue for five days.
While it's certainly a horrific situation, Frozen is by no means a horror. It's all very real, and the none of the situations and twists that happen throughout are beyond the realms of possibility. This is definitely more of a thriller if you had to give it a genre.
Obviously, a large chunk of the film is just the three characters on the chair lift. And a surprising amount of tension comes from that situation as they decide what the best thing to do is. Invariably, it's the exact opposite though.
I don't think it's much of a problem with the film because it just changed how I felt about bad things happening to them, but I found all 3 of the main characters totally unlikable. A bigger collection of arrogant, idiotic pricks I have rarely seen assembled on the big screen. Even later 'humanising' weepy scenes on the chairlift later in the film failed to make me emphasize with them. I enjoyed to see them in this situation, and I don't think that's how the characters were meant to be written.
But it is written incredibly well. Situations you know for a fact will happen from the moment you hear the films premise (Someone deciding to jump for help, getting flesh stuck on metal) are still done in a brilliantly tense manner and things you hadn't thought of happening (wolves!) are just as good.
Frozen is a great little film, and it's good to see Adam Green can pull off films like this as expertly as he can slasher fare like Hatchet. Highly recommended.
****
A startlingly simple idea, with plenty of nerve shredding tension throughout. Apart from the annoying cast, this is great stuff.
1 comment:
I think your line "great LITTLE film" summed it up - it's tense and atmospheric thriller despite not having a tenth of the budget of a Hollywood blockbuster to splash on FX or star actors to fall back on; it simply works as a genuine story which reels you in.
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