The Refrigerator

Imagine you rent an apartment and the landlord neglects to tell you that the fridge is possessed and the gateway to hell. Okay, it sounds really bad but make no mistake, this low budget masterpiece is the business. The delivery is sometimes stilted, the characters are a little two dimensional and the script is over the top in places, but gloriously so. Jacob's direction is spot on, great camera work, smart lighting, good atmosphere and more than a few laughs to be had. plus: not since Brazil and House 2 have the plumbers/handymen of the world had such a hero to call their own, even if you hate schlocky horror films, watch this one for Angel Caban's impossibly smooth Juan, a hispanic Chow Yun Fat.

Geeez! Not nearly a quarter of the fun the title promises this movie to be. A refrigerator is terrorizing a couple who just moved into an apartment. Is the damn thing possessed? Is it just a freezing fridge-monster killing people? I have no idea... No explanation, no story, no gore... Just silly nonsense (and some occasional cheesiness that might have you cracking a smile or sigh deeply) in a flick that takes itself way too serious for whichever reasons I can't imagine. I mean, its title is "The Refrigerator" and it's a horror movie. What went wrong? I secretively was hoping this could just be as much fun as "The Slime" (AKA "Slime City"). Sadly, it's not. As soon as I figured that out, I started wondering if this was going to be a profound piece of art cinema filled with philosophical ponderings about frozen meat & vegetables and uplifted by loving musings at a temperature below zero. I think I just saw the wrong movie. Or something got lost in translation. Whatever.

THE REFRIGERATOR is one of the more cleverly original ideas for a campy horror flick and is pretty much played for laughs. While a bit slow moving at times, this is a must see for all fans of the slapstick comedy/horror sub-genre. If you're a fan of any of the following, then this movie is for you: EVIL DEAD II, STREET TRASH, BASKET CASE, BASKET CASE II, BASKET CASE III, DEAD ALIVE, MEET THE FEEBLES, RABID GRANNIES, or any of Troma's better known releases. If you can imagine an large, evil appliance which is somehow alive, a ghost-in-the-machine device which when opened, has all the ooze and spew of a Peter Jackson special effect, then you have the basic concept of THE REFRIGERATOR, in which machines terrorizes a young NYC housewife. For a low budget flick, this one is very well made, with excellent special effects (though mediocre acting). Highly recommended if you're looking for something a bit different.

There's a whole world of horror films that are positively hilarious without intending to be...however, horror film parodies generally don't work well. This one is slightly better than most, and it's slickly made for a movie at this lowish production level. Still, THE REFRIGERATOR is as slight on laughs as it is on scares, and would probably have been more successful as a short subject than a feature.

The idea of a refrigerator being the Earthly gateway to Hell carries with it a lot of possibilities, but this film just doesn't begin to realize its own potential. It may be fun enough as a casual time-filler, but ultimately comes off feeling like a feature-length SNL skit. Take this one or leave it...you may find it enjoyable. I, for one, stand at the equator with one foot in the "no" zone.

4.5 out of 10 stars.

Young married couple Steve and Eileen Bateman (Dave Simonds and Julia McNeal) move from Ohio to New York City, where they rent an apartment that comes complete with appliances, which sounds good, except that the refrigerator turns out to be possessed and is a portal to Hell.

A film about a fridge that eats people needs to be seriously schlocky and over-the-top, preferably with tons of gore, but The Refrigerator rarely hits the mark: it's weird, for sure, with bizarre performances and random moments of strangeness, but it's also rather boring and uneventful for the most part. Most of the time, all we see is a coloured light emanating from the appliance's interior, and brief shots of people disappearing behind the fridge door.

The film only comes close to the levels of lunacy required in the final act: a man has his leg bitten off by a waste paper bin and his face is mutilated by the blades of a table fan. This unexpected late-in-the-day spot of gore only serves to highlight just how uninspired and lacklustre the rest of the film is. 3/10.