Hypothermia - The Coldest Prey

Good story, good acting, bad monster. The monster was literally hilarious. Next time, please leave something to the imagination.

This film is a throwback to old school creature features from back in the day. This film stars fellow Alabama native Michael Rooker as Ray Pelletier. Ray is a humble family man, and ice fisherman. Blanche Baker (from The Girl Next Door) co stars as his loving wife Helen.

The Pelletier clan plan on a relaxing weekend with their son David & his girlfriend Gina. The relaxing ice fishing weekend comes to an abrupt stop as the Pelletier family is introduced to the very obnoxious Steve Cote and his son Stevie (played by The Flash's Greg Finley). The two families eventually team up in a act of survival as night falls.

In the of cover darkness, something BIG has awakened from the cold waters of the remote frozen lake beneath them. The aquatic creature begins to stalk both families. There is a few great scares from the creature and some nice gore effects. That sadly comes to a end as the creature finally rears its ugly head. The monster itself reminds me of a sleestack monster from the LAND OF THE LOST series back in the 80's.

The film itself has a Runtime of 73 min. So, it doesn't have much time to delve into the creature or create a backstory of said monster. Nor does it go into the dynamic of either of the families.

The dialogue is somewhat simple as it mainly consists of LOTS of F Bombs & Profanity from Don Wood's character. Don Wood who plays Steve Cote perfectly creates a very unlikable character. So much in fact, you want him to die first.

I'd also like to mention to those film aficionados...there is a cool lil homage from JAWS in there when one of the actors says "We're gonna need a bigger hole."

Rooker and Baker do a great job as always especially with what they have to work with. I would have liked to see more story and better creature effects. As I mentioned before, it's a independent creature feature. That being said, it's a fun flick but don't expect too much from it.

You have to feel for Michael Rooker. He's a great actor, unfairly limited to the B-movie genre these days, passed over by the big name productions and stuck making what are, in effect, routine, low budget flicks. HYPOTHERMIA is such a production, a disappointingly cheap flick about an underwater monster. (At least Rooker's fortunes have started to change more recently, with a guest role in THE WALKING DEAD and an appearance in the blockbuster film GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. Perhaps people are starting to remember what a good actor he is.)

Needless to say, Rooker is the best thing in this tale of a normal family who visit an iced-over lake to do some winter fishing. While there they encounter a couple of city slickers who have the potential to irritate, but before long everyone there is being menaced by a creature that comes out from under the ice. The creature is a guy in a suit that bears more than a passing resemblance to THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, only looking about a hundred times worse.

HYPOTHERMIA is only just about acceptable as a film. The title bears no relation to the plot and the cinematography is too dark and dingy. There are some cheap gore effects and a few scenes of menace but none of it means much. You just wonder why the whole group don't just get out of there; their isolation is self-inflicted, making the whole thing faintly ridiculous. Still, a solid performance from Rooker is always worth watching.

It's always interesting to see how quickly a movie can go from promising to a great lump of awful. Hypothermia must have sounded pretty good as a pitch; a family is trapped on a frozen lake by a monster beneath the ice. There's a lot of possibilities there, not that any of them would be explored in the little more than seventy minutes that this movie takes to careen from potentially interesting, all the way down to sucky-ville where it crashes with a spectacular flopping sound. It doesn't just go there, it boards a roller coaster so the trip to Horrible is fast, and you're into before you know it. The movie starts out decently with believable, if uninteresting, family interactions; the quick introduction of the looming threat and then the insertion of obnoxious strangers to complicate the situation. But then...then comes the monster part. Where it degenerates to from there is best summed up by the moment when two women, bloodied and having witnessed multiple deaths, are walking across the ice with the monster threatening from beneath, and the older woman says "Just ignore it". And I kinda wish I was making that up...but I'm not.

It's great to see Michael Rooker being given a leading role, and he is always good, but Blanche Baker literally scowls, and glares peevishly through an undeveloped and underwritten role as his wife. It remains a mystery to me why she would act annoyed, or simply irritated, about her husband's interest in finding them a safe way out and she gets really miffed because, if possible, he wants to kill the rampaging fish-man-monster who is killing her loved ones. She looks seriously aggrieved that he is trying to do anything. As for Amy Chang, playing their son's girlfriend - the kindest thing I can say about her performance is that she gives "terrible" it's new poster child.

As for the monster... well I'll be charitable and guess they spent a whole seventeen dollars on the suit and then hired the first performer who said "I know how monsters act, they roar like this: Roar. Roar." It wouldn't be out of place in a super-cheap amateur film from the 1950's. The old Creature From The Black Lagoon looks like a hundred million dollar special effect in comparison. But Cheapy Fish-Man-Monster does roar. A lot. It flaps it's fish-lips and makes noise (okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration - it doesn't have lips; those would have cost an added fifty cents). Some of the bloody FX on the victims are quite good but then others are distractingly poor, like the effects artist was in the restroom and they didn't want to wait so someone's kid brother visiting the set took over. I'm sure the kid meant well, but still.

And how to describe the "dramatic" moment when the mom talks the monster out of attacking by explaining that they think of this place as "Home"; which, apparently, your average fish-man understands perfectly well so long as you talk to him like an adult; don't raise your voice, look slightly peeved, and tell him you know he's just protecting his natural territory (which they have no reason to suspect, and it's not his territory anyway). And I wish I was making that up...but I'm not. When they just get up and walk away I immediately thought that's what I should have done before I started watching this demoralizing catastrophe. And I wish I'd made this whole thing up...but I didn't.

This movie has just started on the Horror Channel. It seemed familiar and it was. I suffered the pain of this dark (lighting) bleak (Plot and script) a couple of years ago and I am still wearing the plasters. The three stars are Michael Rooker who was ever reliable but what he was doing in this cheap drivel? I will never know. New furniture?? The icy desolate waste is probably a metaphor or the commissioning suits minds although adequate for the movie.

I cannot go too far into all the performances but the supporting cast were keen if nothing else.

I have also have seen some pretty cheap effects when watching Z rated creature features, and some are very good, but this one really had me in stitches. Spend £20 and make it look like £9. Someone is missing a wet suit and flippers.

Even for hard core horror fans (we have watched some rubbish) give it a wide one unless you want to chuckle at the rubber beastie.