The Thaw

Somewhere near the arctic circle scientists happen upon a mammoth, frozen in the ice. As it turns out the age-old creature itself maybe dead, but inside the mammoth there's something very alive...

"The Thaw" is following in the footsteps of "The Thing" (isolation scenario) and "Slither" (disgusting bugs). Clearly showing its low budget the movie still manages to get all its effects good enough to be convincing and its mostly unknown acting-ensemble pulls off their respective characters nicely. Val Kilmer does an OK job - something to be considered a pleasant surprise these days. If you are a fan of his, know that Kilmer gets only little screen time.

To me "The Thaw" really delivered. Just like "Splinter" it's one of those small productions that make you shiver and cringe by what you see on screen as much as by making you imagine how it would be to be confronted with the horrors they show you. Instead of "Highlight-Reel-Slashing" and a scare now and then you get constant terror till the end and a depressingly desperate and hopeless scenario.

Was everything great about "The Thaw"? No. But all it's shortcomings never hinder the emotional impact of the movie which is what I think movies are all about. I think the prominent (pushy) Global Warming theme of the movie has put some viewers off so much that they don't give this little gem enough credit.

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. **

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.

This is an enjoyable little horror movie and more a kin to the movies I watched growing up (horror with a lowercase h by todays standards) The film has a nice long run up to the action which gives you a chance to get to know the characters (which are fairly bland but that doesn't matter) A lot of the horror is creepy crawly based which is more disturbing that scary.

The characters act out in fairly realistic ways (no one pops up to the attic on their own to investigate that damn scratching noise) and there is a real sense of peril.

Don't expect big affects, gore, nudity, over the top action or paralysing fear. Do expect to see an intelligent movie based on a not so intelligent premises, well executed in good time.

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.