October Movie Marathon Part 2: Frozen (2010)

On a weekend ski trip, three college students find themselves stranded on chairlift, and forgotten by the staff of the resort. With the resort closed for the next week and no hope of rescue the trio must figure a way out as a winter storm closes in.

Frozen may stretch the genre boundaries for my October movie marathon a bit. There are no supernatural elements, no monsters, and no serial killers. It might be considered more of a thriller than a horror film. However, I think the movie fits the bill of horror quite well if only for the sheer plausibility of concept. Like the film Open Water, Frozen excels at taking a common place experience, and attempting to show how it can quickly turn into a terrifying one. It is this juxtaposition that fills you with an intense feeling of dread and hopelessness, as the characters of this film are put in an increasingly more desperate position, and you find yourself imagining what you would do in that situation.

A good portion of the horror is psychological, as the characters movie must deal with their deteriorating physical condition and the deaths of their friends, and there is a surprisingly low body count and use of gore, but this only serves to heighten the visceral impact when violence does occur. This movie has plenty of cringe inducing moments. Director/writer Adam Greene does a great job setting up the characters and their relationships in the first twenty minutes, so that you really feel for them with things start falling apart, and they are thrust into life a life death situation. I don’t want to ruin the film, but I felt the climax of the film could have been a bit better thought out and constructed. You don’t really feel like the solution to the conflict in the film feels earned by the characters, but maybe that is just part of the realism that the movie tries to go for.

Frozen is a fun little film that is totally worth a watch. At just under 90 minutes, the length of the film is perfect, and although the concept is limited, the movie does not overstay its welcome. However, do the nature of the plot and action of the film I don’t see me rewatching it very often. If your looking for a horror movie that goes in a bit more realistic direction, then Frozen solid bet.

7/10