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Director: Adam Green (2010)
Starring: Emma Bell, Shawn Ashmore, Kevin Zegers
This review is in association with the Final Girl Film Club.
It's like that movie where everyone falls off the boat, except set on a ski lift. Or like that one with the sharks, but with wolves instead. Three college students take off to the mountains for an afternoon of skiing and frolicking in the snow. Things take a darker turn when they get themselves stuck on a ski lift. Perils include frostbite, Dumb and Dumber style skin-on-frozen-metal trauma, broken limbs, wolves and, y'know, it being a bit chilly up there. And one of the kids is Iceman from off've the X-Men. Talk about being typecast.
By the time it came to the Iceman VS Wolverine fight scene, it became obvious that Aronofsky had never read an X-Men comic in his life.
Perhaps surprisingly, Frozen is a really good film. Writer/director Adam Green takes a not-terribly-great concept and pumps it full of tension. There's just the right balance of bickering and whingeing, with Green wisely deciding not to play up the brats' arguing too much. The otherwise serviceable Adrift was ruined by its cast of idiots and spoilt wee arseholes. Green understands that the idea of, y'know, FREEZING TO DEATH is scary enough without needing to have his characters constantly argue about it. Whilst a couple of them might be a tad irritating, you'll root for at least one of them (the lovely Emma Bell) to get down in one piece. Equally so, there's more than a little schadenfreude to be had in seeing spoilt ski kids getting their commeupance.
It may be a minor piece, but it's definite proof that Green is good for more than just splattery gorefests (ala Hatchet and its sequel) and equally good with straight horror. There's even a cameo from Kane Hodder. All movies are better with cameos from Kane Hodder, even when he isn't stabbing people. Bejesus willing, it might cause viewers to think twice about booking that ski trip with their mates. And let's be honest, ski-ers deserve everything they get. Even that bit with the wolves.
Everyone and their brother has been reviewing this film the past couple of weeks. Guess I need to see it, too.
ReplyDeleteI've been surfing around this morning seeing what my fellow Film Clubbers have to say, and so far things seem to running about 60-40 in the "like" column. It seems I am where I usually am on these type of things: in the minority. :)
ReplyDeleteIT does seem to be a fairly evenly divided feel. I think everyone can see parts of the film were well done I think the score comes down to how the whole sits with you.
ReplyDeleteLazarus Lupin
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