FROZEN (2009)
Right from the opening shots of Frozen, we can empathize with the situation:
A guy and his best friend want to take their annual skiing vacation together, but the first guy wants to bring along his new girlfriend. The second guy agrees, but he's not happy about it; the dichotomy of the friendship has changed, and he doesn't like having to share his closest buddy with this unwelcome new distraction. Tensions rise, verbal sniping creeps into their conversations, and the unwitting boyfriend is soon faced with the unenviable task of choosing between his best friend of two decades or his beautiful new lover.
Seeking one final ski run before the resort closes, the trio boards a chair lift to the top of the mountain. But en route to the summit, due to a terrifyingly plausible miscommunication, the lift is shut down and the staff goes home, leaving our three protagonists suspended in the dark, 60 feet in the air, just as a major winter storm prepares to ravish the mountain. It's Sunday night, and the resort won't open again until the following Friday. No food, no water, no cell phone, no possibility of escape -- nothing to do but wait to die of exposure in the bitter sub-zero temperatures.
Filmmaker Adam Green is no stranger to horror. His debut feature, Hatchet, introduced him as an astute practitioner of '70s and '80s slasher cinema, while his intriguing follow-up, Spiral, explored the concepts of madness and psychosis through a Hitchcock-tinged lens. But with Frozen, Green proves that he's the real deal, a filmmaker with an uncommon ear for dialogue and an ability to convey dread through stark visuals. The scene in which our three main characters obliviously sit on the stalled chair lift while the ski resort's lights turn off in the background, with the darkness stalking up the mountain towards them like a lion, is as chilling as any moment in Halloween.
Green, who also wrote the screenplay, sets up Frozen as a character drama first, rather than a horror movie. The pace is deliberate and methodical; we get plenty of time to observe the dynamics of our three protagonists before they climb aboard the fateful chair lift, and you won't see a better ensemble performance this year. Emma Bell, Shawn Ashmore, and Kevin Zegers are thoroughly believable as the trio, whose petty squabbles soon seem much less important. With dialogue that always sounds realistic, and characters who act in a consistently believable manner, Frozen has respect for the intelligence of its viewers. The protagonists think of a million different ways to get out of their predicament, just as the audience no doubt does, but Green calmly introduces narrative obstacles to thwart them, and us.
Frozen is not an easy movie to watch. The film is overwhelming in its cruelty to a group of people who have earned our affections. Watching the hell to which Green subjects his characters is nerve-racking, and when the movie was finally over, I was surprised to discover that I had gnawed the index finger of my right hand nearly to the point of drawing blood. (Gnawing on this particular finger has been a nervous habit of mine since childhood.) Although less visceral, the movie is comparable to Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in terms of the helplessness and dread it engenders in the audience. It's not a fun film by any means, but it's undeniably a powerful one.
Enough about the movie! What about the Blu-Ray itself?
Frozen is presented in a very fine ultra-wide 2.40:1 1080p transfer that ranges from satisfactory to glorious, depending on the scene. The daytime shots, with their panoramic, ice-capped mountains and swirling snow flurries, are beautiful to behold. Much of the story is set at night, however, and Green's decision to actually shoot night-for-night renders a minor but noticeable loss of detail in these sequences. (That's a drawback of modern video technology, not the movie itself.)
Although not a Michael Bay-esque effects-heavy track, the English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio mix will envelope you in blustery winds, and goes a long way towards selling the characters' sense of isolation. A mono Spanish audio track is also provided, although I did not sample it.
A feature-length making-of documentary is included, split into four parts ("Catching Frostbite: The Origins of Frozen," "Three Below Zero," "Shooting Through It," and "Beating the Mountain: Surviving Frozen"), which may be viewed individually or via a "play all" option. I love documentaries that get into the real nitty-gritty of filmmaking, and Frozen's is superb. (I turned it on intending to sample a few minutes, and ended up watching the whole thing.)
In this documentary, the personable Green explains the genesis of the project, his desire to cast unknown actors for maximum believability, and the controversial decision to shoot the movie on location -- at a real ski resort in Utah -- rather than on a heated sound stage. The hardships of getting equipment up the mountain, the difficulty of suspending his actors 60 feet in the air for hours at a time, and the strain that these intolerable temperatures placed on the equipment, are all covered. Miraculously, the actors and crew remained in good spirits for the entire shoot. They are made of sterner stuff your humble correspondent.
Two audio commentaries are included. The cast commentary track (which also includes Green) analyzes the production from the perspective of its three lead actors (although Emma Bell joins the commentary rather late). A crew commentary provides a nuts-and-bolts discussion of the shoot by Green, cinematographer Will Barratt, and editor Ed Marx. This track repeats many of the anecdotes from the making-of documentary, and can probably be skipped.
Three deleted scenes are included (actually, extended versions of scenes that made it into the film). All are interesting when taken on their own, but their superfluous nature indicates that Green was probably correct to shorten them. The scenes may be viewed with or without Green's commentary.
The movie's theatrical trailer rounds out the bonus content. You may also view the trailer on this page, near the upper left corner.
Frozen heads to Blu-Ray on September 28th, with a DVD edition hitting store shelves the same day. Local readers should be able to find the version of their choice at Best Buy or Wal-Mart, both in Dickson City.
RATING: A
-----
Follow me on Twitter!
Comments
Can't wait to see this movie! Just checked, it's not available through Netflix as of yet but will keep looking out for it!
I haven't seen this film, but I trust your taste. I'm going to seek out "Frozen" after I get back from my upcoming work trip. I need a little horror, edge-of-my-seat movie watching pleasure.
Not my kind of film but good review!! Thanks!!!
Excellent review of Frozen! Going to add this to my Halloween flicks night.
Awesome. I love Adam Green
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!