The plot is as follows: Frozen introduces us to a beautiful kingdom where 2 girls by the names of Anna and Elsa with their snowman friend Olaf in tow decide to embark on a grand adventure and….oh I’m sorry.
Indeed make of that last statement what you will…. Suffice it to say though that this is the kind of film that I will honestly say is one that you choose to watch at your own peril. Suffice it to say then that this is the kind of film that even though you will want to look away at whatever is occurring on screen, the film will still find a way to make itself too riveting for you to do so. Heck this is even a film where even what you may find written about in this review doesn’t do enough for this film’s benefit. Indeed this is a film that trades in the over the top gore and dark humor found in Hatchet for being a film that is no less guaranteed to terrify and engross you to the point that it will never leave you even after the credits begin to roll. I say that because Frozen is a completely different animal by far in that here is a film that is downright gloomy, emotionally sapping, completely exhausting, and quite riveting cinematic viewing experience that is easily one of the more intriguing horror films I have seen. I think it is safe to say that with the slice of cinematic pie I am reviewing today in the form of 2010’s Frozen, film scribe/helmer Adam Green has successfully managed to, at least in the eyes of this reviewer, show that he is neither a one trick pony nor a genius at just making throwback 80s slasher films. However it's not a bad film by a major stretch, there are a couple of moments of small scares and truly extraordinary make up and gore effect design but it's never as fist-gnawingly petrifying as it needs to be to work as a solid horror picture.MPAA Rating: R/ Genre: Horror/Stars: Emma Bell, Shawn Ashmore, Kevin Zegers, Rileah Vanderbilt, Ed Ackerman, Adam Johnson, Christopher York, Kane Hodder, Will Barratt, Joe Lynch, Peder Melhuse, Cody Blue Snider/ Runtime: 93 minutes In the right hands this film could have followed in the footsteps of tight thrillers like Phone Booth but since I never found the characters interesting enough to sympathise for them it never felt as terrifying as the thought of being trapped on a ski lift in the middle of the night myself. It's undeniable that it's beautifully shot and very well-directed but the writing and the characters are the problem. I think the key reasons why it never becomes interesting or suspenseful, and instead get's fairly predictable is down to the fact that the cast is poor and so is the script. If a film with a plot like this never appears believeable then everything else at some point falls apart. To put it simply, horror only ever works when you care about the characters who are stuck in the horrifying situations that are shown on screen, and in the case of Frozen I never got gripped into the illusion that the actors were in any real danger.
But despite the creativity and the genius of it's spine tingling premise, it doesn't deliver as many scares as you think it would. It's not a great start to a review but I honestly think Frozen is a hugely creative horror thriller, when director Adam Green was shooting it I bet there wasn't a single angle shot in the compressed environment in which the story is set that he didn't capture on camera.