Freeze

Found this low budget horror film on a streaming service and decided to watch it. And I'm glad I did. It was only now I've come to review it did I find how much of the minority I seem to be. I'm guessing it's set about 100-150 years ago when a sail-ship takes an expedition to the North Pole in order to find a previous lost vessel. Naturally, they find something pretty nasty waiting to take a bite out of them in the frozen wastelands.

As I say, it's low budget. Don't expect any amazing set pieces, but what I enjoyed was the cast. They were older than your average cast of a modern horror film. Most cases have actors barely out of their late teens cast in roles which should really go to middle aged people. Here, I actually believed that the men on the crew were hardened sailors - especially the captain himself, who I was really rooting for.

Now, don't think that I'm saying that everything is perfect here. The monsters are nice - for the budget, but they're basically men in costumes and the lack of movement was really visible when the creatures had to attack humans. Because the monsters' mouths obviously weren't designed to move and be seen to take bites out of people, they just sort of rub their hideous, slimy faces against the people. It was actually quite comical, unfortunately.

Plus there's a woman on board. Yes, the 'in story' explanation is that she's a stowaway, but her character seems really out of place, like she's had Ripley's ('Alien' franchise) personality imprinted on her. She even tapes two guns together in a weird throwback to that classic scene from 'Aliens.' It's very out of place.

Then you have the human antagonist of the film, who chews up every piece of scenery even harder than any beastie could. He's more evil than a thousand Dr Evils and he shows it.

Yet, I watched it right until the end. I actually enjoyed it. It had its flaws, but the casting and story was different enough to keep me entertained. Although, perhaps its strongest 'selling point' (for me!) was that it was set a long time in the past and this is the first new horror film I've seen in a while where the teens don't have to point out that their cell phones don't have any reception.

Pure garbage!

This movie starts off with 35 minutes of pointlessness.

That's act 1. I don't want to write spoilers here so I'll just tell you it doesn't get better, it gets worse and worse and worse.

The plot holes are massive. I mean you would have to suspend all reality of society to believe some of the things that occur to set up the "story" or "plot" or whatever this thing is.

There are other parts where you will just shake your head and ask: Why. That's the main question. This is utter nonsense. Unless you're into watching a plot that moves in ways that confuse you and make you annoyed, I would avoid this movie. Not good.

I love creature features, and Lovecraften horror. So the premise of this was pretty exciting, and they had nice details with the Lovecraften monster type drawings, but it had literally no atmosphere.

At no point did this film feel like a horror, there was no tension, any danger felt more like action adventure type fighting. The acting was next level bad, but even though some of the characters were ridiculous. It wasn't entertaining bad. Like the villain you know who he is the second he opens his mouth, because he is muhwhahahaha pantomime evil.

And the script and lines just felt really awkward.

The monster design is really generic and uninteresting, and were so obviously fake. All round it was just disappointing.

When I sat down to watch the 2022 movie "Freeze", I had never heard about it, so I didn't know what I was in for, aside from it being some sort of horror movie with some amphibian creatures. And that actually sounded interesting enough to make me pick up the movie and give it a twirl.

The storyline in "Freeze", as written by Charlie Steeds, who also directed the movie, was actually entertaining. It was definitely something a bit more different than what I had imagined, as I assumed it to be another run-of-the-mill creature feature. But it turned out that "Freeze" was actually a movie taking place in the Lovecraft Mythos. See, if I had known that beforehand, I would have tracked the movie down, because I thoroughly enjoy the cosmic dread spun in the Lovecraft Mythos.

"Freeze" was a movie that definitely felt like it belonged within the Mythos, because it was somewhat reminiscent of the "At the Mountains of Madness" story from H. P. Lovecraft, but also connecting with the "Dagon" story as well. There were lots of obvious references, and also some more subtle ones.

The acting performances in "Freeze" were good. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in this 2022 movie from writer and director Charlie Steeds. But I will say that they put on good performances.

Visually then "Freeze" was quite good. The sets, props and wardrobe definitely felt like an era-set movie. But especially the Ichthyoids - the amphibian arctic-dwelling creatures. For being all practical effects and such, I was really impressed with what they accomplished here. Great creature designs and they looked realistic - well, as realistic as make-believe monsters can - on the screen.

If you enjoy the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, then you most certainly have to sit down and watch "Freeze", should you have the opportunity to do so. I was genuinely entertained by this movie. "Freeze" is a good addition to the cinema set in the Lovecraft Mythos, whereas many other such movies tend to be dubious results. This one is worth the time, money and effort.

My rating of "Freeze" lands on a six out of ten stars.

Don't get me wrong now, I absolutely love the horror industry, and when considering movies, I do my very best to find excuses for weaker ones. I can talk about the budget, the experience of the people involved in the making, the conditions, the meddling from the studios and so on.

Freeze failed on absolutely every aspect:

• terrible monsters. The costumes weren't abysmal but their movement, the sounds just amateur all the way.

• killshots. Whenever it is time for a killshot or for some suspense, we get fade to black and a scream.

• effects. Practical but sadly all bad.

• plot. Definitely not ok. You witness more dialogue than anything else.

• no tensions, eyecandy, nudity, gore.

Sadly it really is a prime example of how not to do a horror. For me it looked more like live theatre, also done very badly. It just did not work and it is absolutely impossible to take it serious.

You need about 15 minutes and you realise that this one...is not good.

Cheers.