The back of the box describes The Frozen as a terrifying thriller. However the film is never terrifying, and while there is some mild suspense towards the end, it is never thrilling.
Mike (Seth David Mitchell) makes the worst decision in his life by renting a snowmobile and riding “nine or ten miles” out into the wilderness with his girlfriend Emma (Brit Morgan). The trouble is Mike knows nothing about camping, let alone camping and surviving in the snow, and to top it off, Emma has just found out she is pregnant but hasn’t told Mike. After setting up their tent, which Emma continually reminds him he’s never done before, they go for a snowmobile ride and crash bad. The snowmobile is totaled and now they’re trapped nine or ten miles from their truck. Oh and no one knows they’re out there. No one that is accept the mysterious hunter (Noah Segan) who seems to be watching them from a distance and growing ever closer.
The first part of the film is Mike and Emma pathetically trying to figure out how they’re going to survive this ordeal. Then about forty minutes in Mike goes out of the tent to investigate a noise and never comes back. The rest of the film is Emma by herself trying to survive the elements as well as stay away from the hunter who keeps following her. As well as avoid the weird unexplained ghost/zombie type people she keeps running into and a story that seems to grow more and more incoherent as the film crawls to its conclusion.
Finally the end bring us the big reveal. Don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil it. As it approached I thought, “Wait, they’re not going to end it like this, are they?” and they totally did. And it did make the nonsense kind of makes sense, but it was also stupid it pissed me off.
Ninety percent of The Frozen is scenes with either Mike and Emma or just Emma, so you’d need some extremely strong acting to pull this off. Like Kate Winslet and Ryan Gosling caliber acting. And while Mitchell and Morgan aren’t terrible, they are by no means great. And they struggle to bring life to the dull dialog they are forced to exchange.
There is never a point where we ever begin to care about these characters. We don’t care about what they’ve been through and we don’t care about what may or may not happen to them. When all is said and done, this film will just leave you thinking, “What was the point of that?” And that’s never a good thing.
The film is presented in 1.77:1 widescreen format and 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. The film is very competently shot and actually looks really good. The sound however is pretty bad. There were several scenes where I thought the ADR must have been recorded in a men’s bathroom, very tinny and echoey.
There are no special features, and while I’m glad I didn’t have to waste time watching them, I would have been curious to hear what inspired Andrew Hyatt to write and direct this film.
This is obviously a very low budget film and for the budget it’s not a terrible film. Hell, I’ve seen films ten times worse that had one hundred times the budget (I’m looking at you Michael Bay!). But at the end of it all, The Frozen is a very bland film with some meh acting and stupid story with a textbook student film plot twist.
Ketchup Entertainment presents The Frozen. Written and Directed by Andrew Hyatt. Starring: Brit Morgan, Seth David Mitchell and Noah Segan. Running time: 94 minutes. Rating: PG-13 for some bloody images, brief strong language and terror. Released: December 18, 2012. Available at Amazon.com.
