Frozen Scream

There's a certain vibe one gets when exposed to movies of this caliber. It's like that time you went sniffing around sweet old auntie's cupboards and came across something not meant for your eyes. You feel a need to talk about it, but you can't since you've done a bad thing, might possibly cause some needless embarrasment for your dear auntie and what's worse, they'd label you as the broken pervert you are.

So what do you do? You pretend. Pretend you never saw it. You never even thought about it. See, phew, it's gone. What's Frozen Scream? Is Disney making ice cream now? Oh, boy...

But it doesn't work, now does it? Oh, no. Visions of awful music (also present in another audiovisual travesty called Don't Go Into The Woods), a completely botched dubbing track, pointless plot devices, dialogue scenes that feel like outtakes and quite random violence with no rhyme or reason fill your head. You have seen it. You have witnessed it. Now there is no turning back.

So how do you save yourself? Well, you try to see the funny aspect of this thing munching on your dying brain cells. Like the strange german accent of the main villainess, played by bargain bin movie veteran Renee Harmon. How to describe it? Well, she's no Ilsa, that much I can say.

First I thought the accent felt funny because it reminds me of Tommy Wiseau, but then it escalated into a theory that what if Mrs. Harmon was Tommy's mother in real life. It would explain SO MUCH, but then it freaked me out, so I had to change my theory. Just watch it thinking that's Jim Carrey in complete Man on the Moon -era Latka-mode and you're set.

Another thing that baffles me about this film is that it ended up on the Video Nasties-list, which probably is the main excuse as to why it was ever acknowledged at all. Now, after putting myself in the mindset of a conservative british auntie in the early 80s (might be the same auntie as in the first paragraph - or not) I can understand why so many violent films caused upheaval. By the standards of the time, something like Tenebre must've felt shockingly realistic. But this!?

My guess is that someone on the board of censors (or whatever they called their silly knitting crew) stumbled upon this waste of tape and just went "I can stop people from seeing this... I CAN STOP PEOPLE FROM SEEING THIS!" and that was that. They could've just let it be the ultra rare obscurity it is, but nooooo. Vinegar Syndrome did their thing and now literally anyone can see it. I seriously consider this a case where they just should not have bothered.

See how I struggle to actually say anything about it. Oh, you wanna hear about the scenes that probably caused the film's reputation as an obscene creation? Well, there is a barely topless woman, presented in a dream-like non-erotic manner, and the murder scenes are indeed graphic in nature. I might call them fairly realistic, if this was a homebrew film shot by a bunch of enthusiastic teenagers. What I think really caused its notoriety though is the henchmen. Those wild-eyed Harry Reems- and John Holmes-lookalikes seem like they must be packing some seriously hot stuff under those villainy robes. Like make-you-faint-by-a-sheer-glimpse -level hot stuff. Whatever it might be.

So by now you already know if you should or shouldn't see this, just as by now you know if you should or shouldn't have eaten all that Mac&Cheese that had been lying around in your fridge for a month. You wanna feel strange in a violated way? Frozen Scream is your gateway to that exact feeling.

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!

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.

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.

A pretty lame horror flick about a scientist's attempts to make people immortal. Unfortunately, his immortality process destroys the victim's soul and personality. This is a bad movie, featuring several funny parts. I particularly liked the scene of two women in the hospital talking, when out of nowhere the policeman narrator's voice is dubbed over the conversation. It's just sloppily put together.

Beyond that, the only point of interest is that H. Kingsley Thurber did the music. He also provided the exact same music for Don't Go In the Woods. I'd say over half of Frozen Scream's music appeared in Woods, also. For fans of DGITW this is certainly of historical importance, but ultimately Frozen Scream is not worth your time.

*dec. 2004. I watched it again. I now value Frozen Scream. Some stretches of boredom, but more amusement than I had originally thought. Don't go too far out of your way to see it, but bad movie fans should find something of interest here.