Sometimes all a horror movie needs is a simple scenario from which to spin its tale of terror.
A haunted house. A zombie apocalypse. A possessed kid.
Or a ski lift.
“Frozen,” from “Hatchet” creator Adam Green, takes the latter and creates a taut, deliciously spare thriller.
The film, opening Feb. 5 in select cities, follows longtime buddies Joe (Shawn Ashmore) and Dan (Kevin Zegers) who decide to go skiing along with Dan’s girlfriend, Parker (Emma Bell).
It sounds good on paper, right?
They run into trouble after bribing their way onto a ski lift that’s about to close for several days. Midway up the mountain their ski lift stops. The resort’s night lights power down.
The resort is empty and the temperature is dropping by the minute. And there’s no way off the chair lift. And, thanks to their mischievous bid to sneak in one last trek down the mountain, no one knows they’re up on the lift.
“Frozen” doesn’t offer much more than its facile premise. At times, it isn’t enough, as the trio bicker about the best way to save themselves. And the lack of functioning cell phones is just one of the implausibilities we’re meant to endure.
But Green wisely makes the characters endearing enough to let audiences stay on their side. He also keeps the thrills realistic enough to let us bring our own fears to the predicament.
Consider “Frozen” a companion piece to both 2003’s “Open Water” and last year‘s sleeper “The Canyon,” movies which pit humans against nature. In each case the odds are stacked heavily against the former.
“Frozen’s” young cast acquits itself nicely, particularly Ashmore who turns the typical red blooded male into someone with a heart.
What “Frozen” reveals is we don’t always need the Rube Goldberg devices of “Saw” or menacing stalkers to give us the willies. Just throw a few hapless characters into the wild and watch what happens.
Horror fans addicted to gore and slice-and-dice theatrics will come away from “Frozen” utterly dissatisfied. Audiences open to letting their own fears flavor their movie going experience are in for a treat.
(Photo: Shawn Ashmore stars in “Frozen,” an effective thriller about three skiers who get stranded on a chairlift.)
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Lack of functioning cell phones? I can believe it. I remember driving with friends from New Mexico back into Colorado, through a building snow storm, trying to use a cell phone to find out if the pass through the mountains was still open. We found out when we got there: no. Had to go back to spend the night in Las Vegas, New Mexico, which looked maddeningly familiar to me. (“Red Dawn” and countless westerns filmed there.) If you travel through the Rockies, don’t bet your life on your cell phone working.
Shawn Ashmore plays one of the kids stuck on the ski lift? Must…fight…urge…to…make…Iceman joke…
Charlos, a good friend just went skiing in Colorado and told me he had zero cell phone service in the mountains.
I can’t wait to see this. I hope it opens wider.