‘Frozen’ was the first screening of the 2010 Glasgow Fright Fest and one of the movies that I was looking forward to the most, mostly because it’s the new film from Adam Green. If you don’t know, Adam Green is one of the best horror filmmakers around at the moment and if you haven’t seen his previous movie ‘Hatchet’ then you are missing out! It’s an homage to old school American horror and a film that has developed a huge cult following – so big that at the moment, Green is working on Hatchet 2, due to be released in 2011.
Back to Frozen. The premise of the movie is fairly simple – three skiers are stranded on a chairlift after sneaking on for one final ride before going home. The park is closed up for the week and they have nowhere to go. It’s them against nature as they are forced to make life-or-death decisions before they freeze to death.
When I first heard about the film I wasn’t sure what to expect. My first reaction was “how much can they REALLY do if the whole movie is set on a ski lift?”, however with Adam Green at the helm I knew it wouldn’t be bad. After hearing rave reviews from early screenings and from Sundance, I couldn’t wait to see it. Adam Green himself was also supposed to attend the festival, but due to the weather his flight was cancelled. It would have been good to see him there and to hear him talk a bit about the film.
The pacing of the film is perfect with the tension building nicely towards our three main characters getting stranded. We are also treated to some nice character development through random conversation at the beginning, which adds to the film much later on. Once the film really gets going it never lets up. The three characters are really put through some of the most intense, devastating situations you could imagine and what makes it all the more terrifying is that this isn’t your typical horror film. There is no ‘bad guy’. No slasher, no crazy escaped convict, no ghost coming back from the dead to seek revenge. It’s simply the three characters against nature. It gives the film a realistic edge that is often missing in horror films. One of the things I liked the most about the film was how the horror and the scares was broken up with the characters having conversations about their personal lives, attempting to take their minds off what was happening to them. Adam Green used this as a fantastic way to further build the characters when many other writers/directors would be happy to simply shove buckets of mindless gore down the throats of the audience.
Speaking of the gore, before reading the film I had read a few reviews where people wrote about how disgusting it was and went on about how people were walking out of screenings outraged. Maybe I’ve just became desensitized to gore over the years but I really didn’t see what the fuss was about. Sure it had a few horrible moments however when you compare it films such as Hostel and Saw it was nothing really. Perhaps audiences were getting so upset by it because the gore is more harrowing, realistic and true to that type of real life situation? Who knows.
Overall Frozen is a masterful horror/thriller that never lets up for 90 nail biting minutes. Yes, the plot is pretty straightforward but that only works in it’s favour. The audiences are constantly reminded that yes this could happen in real life and you’ll find yourself watching and wondering “what would I do in that situation?”. I hope that when the film is released later in the year it does well as it’s far better than any of the big budget horror blockbusters that Hollywood have churned out in recent memory.
