Frozen

Okay so this was a great movie, but i never want to watch it again.

Ever.

You get so involved with their situation and you're sucked into it, you feel their pain and horror. Ir leaves you feeling unsettled. A lot like 'Buried' did if you have seen that film.

95% of the film is set in the same location but this doesn't mean it is boring at all. Absolutely not.

So be prepared for an unsettling experience if you choose to watch this film.

By no means is it bad though, it just motivates powerful feelings.

The actors, crew, special effects people, the writers, animal trainers, all, I think, made a good-faith effort. That being said, the movie is lacking in terms of verisimilitude. I wonder how familiar all were with skiing and cold weather. I had a similar experience. Stupidly, for the last run of the the day I went off-piste (trail). I skied in powder up to my waist, fast, dodging boulders and trees. All of a sudden I did a face-plant and was buried. My left hand broke when my pole strap slapped it back. I was lucky. The highest lift was still running, and, thank God, it was visible through the trees. So I waved my pole, and despite heavy snow, I was rescued. If not, I am certain I would have been dead by morning. I put a spoiler alert as one might infer these kids survived. But all I'm saying is, the movie is not realistic re cold. One character stupidly throws her mitten off. One of the guys has a jacket with a hood and he doesn't use it. And they're trapped on a ski lift with no help expected for five days! The girl who threw the mitten got frostbite of course, but she still gets a good bit of use out of her hand. My wife says to mention that their breath isn't freezing. There's another antagonist in the film, but, as far as I'm concerned, the cold would have been enough if they'd played it right. I have just read other reviews and was astounded at the number of positive reviews. Those writers must never gone skiing, but also are not familiar w/cold. The film is SO unrealistic. Not only does the girl throw off one of her mittens, but she sleeps with her exposed hand on the safety rail--I got the latter from other reviews, but I did mention the stupidity of her throwing her mitten away for no reason. It just bothered me that she almost never put her exposed hand in her pocket! Other reviewers have found other really stupid elements. I originally rated this a five 'cause I'm nice guy. But I've gone down to three. If I weren't nice, I'd give it a one. Any avid skier would find this movie totally unrealistic. Again, I'm AMAZED at the number of good reviews. What were they thinking? If this thing can draw positive reviews, hell, I'm going to make movies!

"Frozen" is a great suspense movie that works -and does so extremely well- with very few elements: a natural environment as beautiful as hostile, three helpless characters, and time running against them. That's it. Filmmaker Adam Green somehow manages to pull this off -keep the interest and the viewer's attention almost without a break for an entire hour, that is, the whole running time except for about 25 minutes to introduce the characters and create the atmosphere for their horrific experience -which is, in my opinion, a good point, because the characters are nice people and I cared about them and their luck.

These three characters are Dan, his girlfriend Parker and his best friend Joe, all on a skiing vacation. One evening they get on a chair lift back from skiing, but it stops without notice, with them being its only occupants -hanging 50 feet above the ground in the middle of nowhere and no hopes of being found in three days.

Like I said, the suspense and the thrill work very well and go in a crescendo, especially for the first half since their situation begins. There are some truly horrifying moments, proving once again that it doesn't take a lot of blood and guts splatted all over the viewer in order to convey a real feeling of terror. This is survival horror at its finest -experiences that can happen to anyone, because they involve all real life elements.

The pace goes remarkably down toward the end, and there are a few scenes that, though not long, drag it down a little bit and don't seem to serve any real purpose, except to linger the denouement a little more.

The only real problem I have with "Frozen" is its ending, which I find objectionable not because I may think it is bad, but because the rest of the movie is so terrific, I expected something on par with that. It is, however, a very worthwhile movie and one I recommend to all fans of thrillers and horror movies full of tension.

My score: 9 over 10.

A college student goes on a weekend ski/snowboard outing with his girlfriend and his jealous buddy. It was supposed to be just the guys, but Parker came along, much to buddy Lynch's dismay. She is still learning, and as a result of this, the trio spends most of the day on a bunny slope. After some complaining from Lynch, they decide to go on a quick run down the mountain before the day is through, but there's bad weather moving in. They manage to convince the lift operator to let them go, but through a series of unfortunate circumstances, the lift is stopped midway up the mountain leaving them stuck as the place shuts down for the week. With bad weather, the freezing cold and a large drop between them and the ground, the chances for survival are looking slim. And that's not taking the pack of hungry wolves into account.

I caught this at the Parks Mall AMC back in February and thought it was fantastic. It's from the Open Water/Black Water/The Canyon school of survival horror. All of those films are intense portraits of people stuck in some form of wilderness nightmare with little hope of escape, but Frozen may just be my pick for best of the bunch. At one point early on into the trio's predicament, I discovered that I had unknowingly squeezed my hands together so tightly that they had fallen asleep, so it's safe to say that the tension got to me. The characters also really grew on me as the film wore on, and I actually felt really bad for them. This is Emma Bell's first film, and I was quite impressed with her performance. While she has a spotty moment or two, for a first-timer, I'd say she knocked it out of the park. Her standout scene takes place when she's relaying her fears about what might happen to her puppy if she dies on the lift, and if he'd think she abandoned him.

Kudos to Adam Green for shooting this film on location. There are no green-screens or studio sets to be found here. Green and company found an actual lift to go out and shoot on. Equal amounts of kudos must go to the actors, as they were the ones up on the lift braving the elements for the authenticity a film of this type needs. Their hard work and tolerance paid off, as I often felt like I was right there on the lift with the characters. The chilly atmosphere vividly leaps off the screen, the bleak nature of the situation in which these three find themselves never in doubt. This film also hit a little closer to home for me, as I spent a week of skiing, etc. in Winter Park, CO not two months prior to watching this at the theater. With that fresh in my mind, I was left with an even stronger feeling of "What if?".

Also effective is the sparingly used score, usually played over visuals of the abandoned ski park. There are some gruesome bits, particularly the hand scene from the trailer and a discovery towards the film's end, but most of the tension comes from the predicament itself and some of the debasing things the characters have to do. Needing to take a leak while stuck on a ski lift may not be a big deal if you're a guy, but Parker's options aren't so easy.

I didn't think much of Adam Green's Hatchet. Frozen, on the other hand, is worth raving about.

The director (whom I didn't know before this movie) gets to generate an authentic tension from a real suspense story: the panic gripping the trio is absolutely palpable, although the strong implausibility of no one having a cellphone is not that believable. The terror due to their predicament mounts minute by minute and is made genuine by showing a harsh environment and by imposing tension on each of the characters. The cast is not famous at all but the way the story is set and the three personalities are described keeps attention and tension high and strong. I recommend it also for the wonderful location (movie shot in Utah's Rockies).