Terror Bajo la Nieve

THE THAW is an unashamed rip-off of THE THING, with the action shifted to Alaska rather than the Arctic and a prehistoric parasite rather than a shapeshifting alien as the menace. Other than that, it's business as usual, with a small cast whittled down by an unknown enemy and paranoia erupting all over the shop.

Given that this is a low-budget B-movie starring a mostly unknown cast, I thought it was surprisingly enjoyable. The director and writer focus on the sense of impending menace and the creepy atmosphere for the most part, and it works well; some parts are genuinely unnerving. There are the inevitable gross-out and medical scenes, but these are handled well; the gore effects are limited but more effective as a result. Even the expected CGI isn't too shabby.

The idea of a parasitical organism has been explored quite a lot in recent years - such as in the memorably creepy found-footage horror, THE BAY - and it's always one I find pretty disturbing, and that's no exception here. Add in a value-for-money Val Kilmer and you have a decent B-movie for a change.

Even though the movie as a whole isn't really awesomely smashing in any way, the first thing that really struck me is how well done and thought out it all is.

It features realistic portrayals of human behavior all the way through. From phobias, realistic explanations of how they came to the conclusions they did, to a person using a multimeter and electrical tape to actually fix something. Like a real person might. And they all have their agendas. Also gunshots don't sound like tanks, and they don't make 10" holes in people. There are no huge aliens, there's no gratuitous nudity and it doesn't take one chop with a cleaver to cut someones arm off. Another thing that surprised me is that bodies don't vanish, the same with tracks and bruises etc.

In most movies (*ahem* multi-million dollar productions) stuff like this, commonly called realism, is just glazed over. Your focus is shifted to the CGI and the huge explosions the MTV generation seems to love, like some magician distracting your attention so he can get away with tricking you (out of a good plot).

Anyone who likes realism and thrillers/horror will probably have a jolly fine time watching this one. There's a bit of bad acting on the part of a few characters (though all the main ones are excellent), and as I stated the movie isn't miraculously good in any way. It's still better than most, and it has some really redeeming qualities to it.

After reading some of the comments on this movie, I was more than pleasantly surprised at how good this smart little bug feature was A definite step up from the usual B movie sci-fi horror crap that's been out in the cinemas this year. There were decent squirm effects and gore and a nice touch of tongue in cheek humour too. The cinematography was cool and eerie and the brooding atmosphere had echoes of The Thing and Near Dark (although it's nothing like The Thing) I thought the acting and direction were assured. I Liked the twist at the end too. Don't listen to some of the other reviewers on this forum as I doubt that they have actually seen the film.

Why was Val Kilmer in this one? It makes no sense to me. I know he's growing old and his last castings were not the best, but still.

The film is a classic isolated monster/contagion movie, featuring most clichés you would expect. Brave and good looking chick, check; black and Asian representation, check; cowardly hysterical jerk, check; scary but completely implausible premise, check; mad scientist, check; brave guy that saves the girl, check. Actually, the formulaic concepts were so absurdly respected that when there was a scene where they would cut some guy's arm off to stop the contagion, they didn't actually show the cut. Same goes for when the girl had to strip to check for contagion. No problem showing flesh crawling bugs, though.

I could debate the reasons why the film made no sense to no end, but I will tell you just this: prehistoric bugs that come out of the thawing ice will NOT make me think harder about global warming. This theme is largely responsible for why the movie sucked so much.

Bottom line: couldn't even give it an average 7. The effects and the atmosphere (if you ignore the actors completely) are the only two good things happening here.

There are many films which warn of Global Warming, this is one. In this movie called " The Thaw ", a research scientist, Dr. David Kruipen (Val Kilmer) working in the Artic discovers a prehistoric Wooly Mammoth frozen in ice. The bad news, as it begins to thaw, he also releases a deadly contiguous parasite which devours any host within hours. Into this hostile environment, a group of research students have come to help him including his daughter. One by one the students become aware of the parasite's deadly effect as each is exposed. Soon the entire station is under attack from the deadly creature and it becomes alarming just to survive. There is a substantial list of criticism aimed at this film, beginning with it major star. Val Kilmer is perceived as a major attraction with some of the finest movie roles in his past achievements. Time has elapsed and we now see him in shallow low budget films such as this one and ask why? The story is grudgingly plausible, but there is much lacking. Was this suppose to be a ecological awakening or a standard horror movie? In either case, it fell short. It does have a few interesting points in its favor, but are tiny in comparison with its detriments. As a result, Mr. Kilmer has traded his star status for trinkets and simple Waupun and like the film, it's sad. **