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Frozen is an Above-Average Nature-Horror Flick

Frozen
Written and directed by Adam Green
Anchor Bay, 2010

Adam Green made a big name for himself with the cult horror film Hatchet, which had horror fanatics creaming there for awhile.

Taking its cue from Open Water, Frozen sets up a situation that very well could happen, a comment on how scary it is to have your life in the hands of minimum-wage employees.  Dan Walker (Kevin Zegers), his girlfriend Parker (Emma Bell), and his best friend Joe (Shawn Ashmore) are on a ski trip and want to bypass the rules of buying lift tickets by bribing the guy who runs the lift.  They have a normal day of skiing, relishing in their ability to grab life by the balls, but for Joe, the skiing is unsatisfactory…Dan’s always got to have his girlfriend around, and she isn’t a great skier, and most of the time is spent helping her off the ground.

So, Joe and Dan want to make a final run on a real hill, and due to some guilt on Joe’s part, Parker ends up tagging along anyway, and they try to coax the lift guy to allow them up one more time before the resort shuts down for the day…and for the next week in fact.  So, they go up, and because we’re talking about workers who just want to get the hell out of there and aren’t paying too close attention, a series of events occurs that leads to the stopping of the lift while Dan, Joe, and Parker are halfway up the hill.

Stuck in the lift very high from the ground, they think it’s a normal malfunction that will soon be corrected.  After all, they wouldn’t just leave them up there, right?  But after awhile they get their answer, as the lights get turned off in a fantastic scene of impending dread.

So now, the three bribing skiers are fucked, and they have to sit in the lift and avoid frostbite and the dangers of freezing metal on skin.  But when Dan decides he’s going to try make a jump for it, which actually turns out to be a very stupid scene in the movie when you consider the later events, we find out there are other things to worry about other than being abandoned on a ski lift and dealing with the elements: how about hungry wolves?  Yep, the inevitable occurs when Dan hits the ground, and that’s when the wolves make their scene.

Overall this is a pretty frightening horror film, just because I think this type of thing could very well happen, and the horrible effects of freezing temperatures, heights, and obstacles for everything you could possibly think of to get out of the situation make the idea even less savory.  I’ll say it again, though, considering what they attempt after Dan’s impossible jump, and the knowledge they possess concerning the ski lift, it’s ridiculous to think they wouldn’t have tried the other thing first.  The chances of surviving the fall as compared to the other options had me scratching my head, but then again, we wouldn’t have a good chunk of the movie if the characters decided to be completely smart.

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