Director
Adam Green
Cast
Emma Bell - Parker O'Neil
Shawn Ashmore - Joe Lynch
Kevin Zegers - Dan Walker
The 2010 movie Frozen is much too forgotten despite being a fairly recent film. This might be due to that 'other' movie with the same title, released in 2013, from Disney about Disney things. I mean, if you ask anyone "have you seen 'Frozen'?" it's more than likely that person won't think "oh, yeah...that 2010 thriller about skiers trapped on a ski lift overnight."
In Frozen, childhood friends, Dan and Joe, and Dan's girlfriend Parker, spend a Sunday at a ski resort in New England. They agree to take just one last run down the mountain before heading home for the night. As a snow storm is approaching, the ski resort is closing early. However, they bribe the ski lift operator to let them on one last time.
He reluctantly agrees, and as they're taking the lift, the operator is called into his manager's office to deal with a scheduling issue. He remembers to tell his replacement that there are three skiers left.
The replacement sees three different skiers head down the slope and thinks that's the other three. So, he shuts down the lift and leaves for the night unaware the skiers are still on the lift.
It's unnerving at first when the lift stops, but once those lights along the slopes go out, it becomes real.
The three are stuck on a ski lift at night with dropping temperatures, and a snow storm is approaching. On top of all that, one of the skiers remembers that the resort is only open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Panic sets in and lingers as they dangle several feet over the snow where it's too high to jump off. The storm finally approaches over head. Dan, Joe, and Parker are hit with freezing rain and snow.
After some time passes through the night, Dan decides he's going to have to jump if they want to be rescued. What follows is the other two on the lift forced to watch the fate of their helpless friend below on the ground.
Panic sets in and lingers as they dangle several feet over the snow where it's too high to jump off. The storm finally approaches over head. Dan, Joe, and Parker are hit with freezing rain and snow.
After some time passes through the night, Dan decides he's going to have to jump if they want to be rescued. What follows is the other two on the lift forced to watch the fate of their helpless friend below on the ground.
Their danger intensifies into the next morning with Parker, who's already suffering from frost bite, wakes up and finds her bare hand frozen to the safety bar.
For a simple plot, this movie is a bulls-eye. When it comes to what makes it a scary film is its realism. Such a plot is not a stretch by any means. In fact, just searching for "stuck on a ski lift" on Google brought up a lawsuit involving a teen who back in 2016 was stranded on a lift 30 feet in the air for several hours at a North Carolina mountain resort. The kid actually jumped and survived out of fear of freezing to death.
Scenes are cringe worthy in just the right way forcing the audience to brace themselves at certain
parts of the movie.
According to the behind-the-scenes segments on the DVD, the filmmakers really did their homework to make this movie work. For instance, one of the skiers attempts to climb across the lift cables in an attempt to reach the ladder on the side of the support tower several feet away. Little does he know that even though the cables look like metal rope, it's incredibly durable (I mean, they have to be to be able to support the lifts up the mountain side) and very sharp. This is a small but important detail filmmakers looked into.
Normally movies in the eco-horror genre involve intense natural disasters, ravenous animals out to kill, or something eco-horrific that's right on the border of something perhaps supernatural (i.e. The Mist, The Happening, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.) This movie surely stems from the "man vs. nature" trend common in the mix of reality entertainment. Reality is a scary thing.
Part of the terror is that even though there's a way out of the terrible situation, it isn't an easy way out. No matter what the characters do to try and save themselves (jump, or climb across the cables) these efforts will leave an emotional and physical scar. Stephen King is a master at that "no easy way out" scenario. (i.e. Cujo, Misery) This film reminds me of his way of storytelling.
Though the acting tends to lean towards being forced, especially in the beginning, the movie is still superbly entertaining, perfect in its intensity and keeps the audience interested. It leaves them with discussions on what they would do to survive in a similar situation.
The dialogue also comes across as dull. Once the main characters get on that lift, I was ready for the action to start, and tired of listening to them drone on with stereotypical millennial lingo.
Plus, actor Shawn Ashmore, who plays Joe, also starred as Ice Man in the X-Men films. I guess he just has a knack for playing characters involved with ice.
It's too bad Frozen flies under the radar. It's a great story with horrific reality that can be more terrifying than any fictitious monster.
Oh, and speaking of fictitious monsters, Kane Hodder makes a cameo in the movie. He's dawned a few hockey masks during his acting career.
According to the behind-the-scenes segments on the DVD, the filmmakers really did their homework to make this movie work. For instance, one of the skiers attempts to climb across the lift cables in an attempt to reach the ladder on the side of the support tower several feet away. Little does he know that even though the cables look like metal rope, it's incredibly durable (I mean, they have to be to be able to support the lifts up the mountain side) and very sharp. This is a small but important detail filmmakers looked into.
Normally movies in the eco-horror genre involve intense natural disasters, ravenous animals out to kill, or something eco-horrific that's right on the border of something perhaps supernatural (i.e. The Mist, The Happening, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.) This movie surely stems from the "man vs. nature" trend common in the mix of reality entertainment. Reality is a scary thing.
Part of the terror is that even though there's a way out of the terrible situation, it isn't an easy way out. No matter what the characters do to try and save themselves (jump, or climb across the cables) these efforts will leave an emotional and physical scar. Stephen King is a master at that "no easy way out" scenario. (i.e. Cujo, Misery) This film reminds me of his way of storytelling.
Though the acting tends to lean towards being forced, especially in the beginning, the movie is still superbly entertaining, perfect in its intensity and keeps the audience interested. It leaves them with discussions on what they would do to survive in a similar situation.
The dialogue also comes across as dull. Once the main characters get on that lift, I was ready for the action to start, and tired of listening to them drone on with stereotypical millennial lingo.
Plus, actor Shawn Ashmore, who plays Joe, also starred as Ice Man in the X-Men films. I guess he just has a knack for playing characters involved with ice.
It's too bad Frozen flies under the radar. It's a great story with horrific reality that can be more terrifying than any fictitious monster.
Oh, and speaking of fictitious monsters, Kane Hodder makes a cameo in the movie. He's dawned a few hockey masks during his acting career.
