In the horror world we have all come accustomed to to seeing masked killers, zombies, ghosts, and others. Very few of these genre ï¬lms these days can considered chilling or terrifying. Director Adam Green of Hatchet returns to the director’s chair with a horror film that bring fear into the real world with his ï¬lm Frozen. Just how terrifying can this non-typical horror ï¬lm be?
We follow three friends who get together for a Sunday of skiing. As their day of fun come near an end, Parker (Emma Bell), her boyfriend Dan (Kevin Zegers), and Dan’s best friend Joe (Shawn Ashmore) decide to convince the life attendant to let them go one more round. Confusion occurs and the three friends ends up getting stuck on the lift. As time goes by, the three realize they won’t be getting rescued any time soon. Their fear begins to escalate as they have to suffer the cold, the pack of hungry wolves beneath them, their unknown fates, and at some points…each other.
At ï¬rst glance, Frozen may not seem like the type of ï¬lm that one may call conventional scary. I admit I didn’t think this would be that scary either, and I thought I would be mentally yelling at the screen the whole time. But as I began to watch it, the chills began to set in. The situations the characters ï¬nd themselves in during the ordeal is so heart pounding, and sometimes cringeworthy that you can’t even fathom what it would be like if you were in their situation. On top of this, it also hits on an emotional level. There is a moment where Parker has a breakdown about what will happen to her dog if she ends up dying. Being a dog-lover this really hit me hard, and Emma Bell’s performance in this scene is so spot on and heart-wrenching. Shawn Ashmore and Kevin Zegers also deliver great performances. As the friends are the stuck on the lift, there are moments where they take out their anger and frustration on each other, and you feel the tension between them all. The acting is the biggest thing I praise the ï¬lm for. This, hands down,
has the best acting I’ve ever seen in a horror film. The actors get so into their characters, you almost think that we are actually watching them in a real situation, watching their fears and suppressed emotion rise, and you’re rooting for them all to survive. Adam Green has quickly become one of my favorite horror directors. He knows his audience and knows how to get under their skin. Frozen deï¬nitely isn’t a conventional horror ï¬lm, but it brings a new level of fear to the genre by giving something real to be afraid of.
–Cody Landman
