The Charge
No one knows you’re up there
Opening Statement
Frozen is a mediocre thriller which probably worked great as an idea, but only halfway met the mark onscreen.
Facts of the Case
College students Parker, Joe and Dan want to get in one last run on the slopes before heading in for the night. They bribe the chairlift attendant into letting them make another run and he reluctantly agrees. That attendant is summoned indoors by his supervisor and his replacement turns off the power, thinking everyone is off the mountain. The students are left stranded on the chairlift with the temperature dropping and a storm rolling in. At a height of more than fifty feet off the ground and with frostbite setting in, the skiers resort to extreme measures in order to survive.
The Evidence
Strategically released in the dead of winter, Frozen is the newest from director and writer Adam Green, another film where humans fight the element. Man versus nature films can be the scariest because they force us to realize how fragile we are. Green opens with close ups of mechanical parts surrounding a chairlift, clueing us in that this impersonal contraption might soon be a menace. This suspicion is correct, because before long our three individuals are stranded and hoping they will be rescued, as they know that an unrelenting Mother Nature will surely deal a deadly blow.
Shawn Ashmore and Kevin Zegers play Joe and Dan, a couple of long time friends who were once very close, until Parker (Emma Bell) became Dan’s significant other one year ago. Joe is now the jealous friend and doesn’t much care for Parker’s intrusion. This is evident as much time in the film is spent on the chairlift and consequently, it is dialogue heavy. (What else can you do when stuck on a chairlift but talk?) Bell stands out with the most emotional performance of the three. Zegers and Ashmore (best known his portrayal of Iceman from the X-Men franchise, oddly enough) are a little less convincing, although that can be attributed to the script sounding like “filler” while they are stuck on the lift. The audience can’t help but have sympathy for Parker, as she is genuinely scared and shows the most vulnerability. This is most evident when she needs to use the bathroom, but can’t do so as easily as the boys can.
Horror and thriller can be tough genres of film to make because the less believable the story is, the harder it is to emotionally bring the viewer in. I will admit that there were times where I did feel for the characters (like Emma’s need to relieve herself) and even flinched at some painful moments on the screen. At one point early in the film, one of the men decides to jump and we know that it won’t end well. I won’t go into details, but it was cringe inducing. Another major plot point produces some gory effects, but I won’t spill the beans on that either.
Frozen was moderately entertaining, but the flaws kept it from rising above the tree line. My biggest grievance was the lack of emotion in the cinematography. Never did I feel like I was in the situation with the characters. I always felt like a spectator which removed any surrounding fear. Some have compared Frozen to Jaws or Open Water. While I wasn’t a fan of Open Water, both of those films did a better job of putting the viewer right into the thick of the situation. The camera often bobbed up and down, giving us the same sensation of being on water that the characters were experiencing. With Frozen, almost every shot that I can remember was steady and well framed. A simple swaying of the camera side to side would have given us the sense of movement that the characters surely were experiencing. I have spent enough time skiing to know that inoperative chairlifts are rarely ever still, but yet we have no reflection of that in the camera work.
The height of the chair from the ground could have also been better worked to establish fear in the viewer. We can see from a few long shots that they are probably fifty feet up, but we don’t get a grasp of what it would feel like, as there was no sense of fear or vertigo instilled in the viewer. We could see that Emma was scared of the height, but that was the extent of the connection I had with the looming danger. This could have been created with some point of view shots, or possibly movement on the part of the camera. Instead, we hear dialogue about past relationships and see a beautiful mountain landscape in the background on a steady crane.
Other problems keep Frozen from being a great, or even really good film, most of them having to do with issues of logic. One gripe happens early in the film and involves the chairlift. I would assume that after the last group is let onto a chairlift, lift operators would continue to run before turning off the power to ensure that no one is on the lift. I also know that operators man the top of the lift as well, and it would seem that some sort of communication would happen at the end of a day. Secondly, I have trouble believing that a ski resort would shut off the lights to the mountain without the ski patrol combing the slopes at least once for stragglers. With the haphazard practices being implemented at this particular resort, having people stranded would happen more often than not.
Many of you are reading this and saying, “Judge Daniel, you are just being nitpicky.” Well, you are right. This is a thriller and I’m spelling out the reasons why I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t bored either, but at the same time, it didn’t have its intended effect because there were too many things I had a tough time believing.
Closing Statement
Although Frozen had a tight running time, a good performance by Emma Bell and a few moments that made me say “eewwww”, problems in logic failed to create a believable picture. Mostly, Frozen suffered the most from the lack of creative cinematography to help convey more emotion.
The Verdict
5/10
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