Sometimes in horror movies simplicity is key. Case in point would be writer/director Adam Green’s latest thriller Frozen. The film follows three main characters are trapped on a ski lift several hundred feet in the air with no hope of being rescued. It’s one of those simple premises that everyone can identify with and has always secretly been terrified of. Despite some setbacks involving awkward characterization, Frozen promises to be one of the tensest cinematic experience of 2010 that has been garnering surprisingly strong reviews for a genre outing since premiering at Sundance.
Emma Bell, Shawn Ashmore, and Kevin Zegers star as three college buddies escaping class for a weekend on the slopes. The first 20 minutes is dedicated to establishing their personalities and unfortunately some of the writing is on par with a cheesy 80s ski comedy. The character types are well-worn (the arrogant alpha male, the skeptical girlfriend, the socially awkward stoner, etc.) and Green does little as a writer to distinguish his characters from the cast of Ski School. Fortunately, he traps them on the ski lift quickly and once the film transforms into survival horror mode there are few missteps. From the moment the three leads realize the severity of their predicament until the lone survivor (come on, there had to one) stumbles to safety, the director skillfully increases tension on an almost second-by-second basis.
The horror in Frozen doesn’t rely on genre clichés like a hulking masked killer, but instead director Adam Green (Hatchet) exploits identifiable day-to-day fears. You can practically feel the cold itching up your spine, wide shots of the lift given an unnerving sense of vertigo, and the carefully produced make-up effects will make you feel the frost bite. The simplicity of the film is a refreshing change of pace from the current horror climate. In many ways, this is a throwback.
Yes, there are more conventional thrills like compound fractures and frozen skin peeling away that will make audiences appropriately nauseous, but this is really a movie where the devil is in the details. When a character loses a glove leaving a hand open to the elements, it tops the dramatic impact of most death scenes. Some sequences are almost unbearably suspenseful and it’s nice to see a contemporary horror director using simple tricks of audience manipulation rather than the shock and awe tactics that define most current genre outings like Saw.
That said, there are a few flaws sure to put off some viewers. The dialogue can be a little lame at times and the characters never cease to act on bad ideas. But, these are minor quibbles in what is otherwise an expertly crafted survival horror flick. If ski lifts ever made you uneasy before you’ll never go on one after this. Plus it’s nice to have a “warm flesh stuck on cold metal” scene that tops the discomfort of the tongue sequence in A Christmas Story. Anyone frustrated with the current state of horror movies can start their reevaluation here. Well, as long as you skip the first 15 minutes anyways. – Phil Brown
