Frozen Scream

It's hard to believe this was made in 1975 or on the planet earth. It seems much older than that and alien on most levels. Whenever a scene seems pointless, rather than cut it down they instead have a detective character speak over the already speaking actors. It's something of a struggle to know who to listen to and the detective sounds like the famous voice over from THE CREEPING TERROR--a famously bad film that this film gives a run for it's money. There is other redubbing going on from time to time in a way that it seems several different actors redudded lines even within one scene playing for the same character.

Brief brief nudity and powerful low budget bad idea badness give this film more bad movie energy than either THE CREEPING TERROR or PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE. It does come a good ten years too late to be considered as much of a must see as those films since by the mid 70's bad films existed in such numbers it became more fashionable to love them than hate them.

But this deserves attention, directing, music, acting, etc etc all areas defy common logic and supersede lack of talent in a way that is, well, talented.

Rarely has a bad film been so much fun to me of late. There's an odd sort of dream scene--always another plus--and one vaguely thought inducing monologue about how science always tamper with nature even in curing disease.

To add to the greatness is of course the generally terrible nature of the copies to watch, giving it that late night broken telecine projector feel that will make bad movie fans swell with nostalgia or excitement. Oh yeah there's also a drunken priest character in one scene, the fun rarely stops in this one.

This is the sort of enterprise that is distinctively terrible enough to provide some laughs and be sporadically memorable, yet also just inept enough to be kinda dullish most of the time nonetheless. I enjoyed the highly variable performances, the women's big hair, the disembodied quality of dialogue entirely dubbed in post, the female villainess' cartoon Teutonic accent (strongly reminiscent of Madeline Kahn in "Blazing Saddles"), the blonde who acts like a Stepford wife, the dancers showing off and looking very foolish in the party sequence, the frequent editorial/narrative non sequiturs. But goofy as all this is, the film also just kinda lays there much of the time. It also frequently looks like hell, such that you wonder if it was shot not in 16 but 8mm--I mean, parts are THAT grainy. There are some delightfully terrible moments, yet I can't imagine sitting through this again.

The movie sets off with a very complex scenario that requires extended narration to explain. This narration along with the dialogue is fairly well written, however, it's sure to make you roll your eyes as you've heard all the lines before in pre-seventies horror and sci-fi. The acting is some of the poorest I've seen and I watch a lot of b-horror. It's like the actors are not even trying.

I can compare this movie to well loved bad films like "Asylum of Satan" and "The Devil's Rain" which are full of cool elements and atmosphere, but are extremely run-of-the-mill when it comes to plot. "Frozen Scream" has got some cool flashbacks to weird cult-like activity involving nudity. There is some pretty good gore including self-mutilation. I love the genre of 70's trash and if you do too I highly recommend this movie. I don't think it's so easy to track down. It could have become a cult hit, but it must have slipped through the cracks. My copy of the video pairs "Frozen Scream" with "Executioner II" as a double feature. "Executioner II", from the same man who brought us this film, is one of those movies about a Nam vet who returns to America and then cleans up the streets by killing pimps and criminals.

After opening narration with keen insight into the mysteries of life like I've listed up above, mad Dr. Sven Johnson (Lee James) and his evil assistant Lil Stanhope (Renee Harmon) are shown trying to reverse the aging process by experimenting on tied-up captives. They send out ridiculous-looking, hooded, laughing, bug-eyed henchmen with scythes to gather victims. Jumbled nightmare/flashbacks featuring wrist slashing, blood-drinking, a topless blonde and zombified teens chanting "love and immortality!" around a campfire will make you think you're losing your mind. Meanwhile, a band at a pool party sings "Jack Around the Shack" (?!) to the tune of Rock Around the Clock!

Nothing in this very bad (but rare) movie makes a lick of sense, the droning narration goes on and on (if fact it often goes right over some of the dialogue!) and the entire monotone cast acts brain dead. Harmon, who co-wrote the original story and produced, proves she is just as awful behind the scenes as she is on screen. Continental Video released FROZEN SCREAM on a double tape with the equally awful EXECUTIONER, PART II (which was also written by and starring Miss Harmon).

I dare you to suffer through TWO of her films in the one night!

All I knew when I bought this was that there was a screaming woman in bikini and 80s hair on the cover - good enough for me! Little did I know that I was in for one of the most enriching bad-movie experiences of my life. Very few crap masterpieces achieve this pitch of manic hilarity: disastrously chaotic, sludgy, tawdry and completely unpredictable. Two different living rooms in two different provinces have been filled with friends gasping for air as they watched. It picks up steam as it goes along too, adding element upon useless, mind-boggling element. Of course the best one is that fricking detective, his jocular voice-over dropping on top of ongoing pointless dialogue scenes like an anvil; you never know when he's going to start spouting off and that adds suspense. The conniving head nurse with the charisma deficit has an accent so impenetrable you wonder why she wasn't dubbed, especially when the tall, Nordic-looking old mad scientist shows up, because he WAS dubbed - his voice is unmistakably that of a very articulate African-American man! Throw in those wasteoids chanting "Love and immortality" on the beach, gore effects courtesy of Heinz, and the un-oiled flywheel of a soundtrack, all coming at you non-stop one after the other. Jaw-droppingly bad.