cinemadaily | Sundance Midnight Thriller “Frozen” Chills Audiences This Weekend

It’s not only writers at genre sites that are glowing; Rex Reed at the New York Observer starts his review by saying, “Prepare to be electrified. Frozen is a brilliantly conceived, gut-wrenching horror film about three vital, healthy, appealing and attractive skiers whose perfect snow day turns into a nightmare when they get stranded on the chair lift after dark. This is every skier’s worst fear, and the talented writer-director Adam Green gives it life in ways that will leave you impacted long after the 94 minutes of unrelenting suspense have ended. Calm and jaded as I am, I was left so paralyzed with terror by this movie that I chewed a whole pencil in half watching it.”

Sam Adams, in Philadelphia’s City Paper, bridges the gap between horror hardcores and a more general approach to film criticism saying in a more measured review, “Green has a reasonable grasp of genre mechanics, and the fact that the film was shot without recourse to digital effects adds immeasurably to the sense of peril, but he never succeeds in creating characters whose welfare strikes the slightest note of concern, or developing their plight beyond its superficial outlines. The see-sawing between would-be emotional moments and gross-out gore indicates that he’s uninterested in or unable to think beyond the moment, pushing his audience this way and that without deciding which path to take.”

”“Frozen” delivers enough thrills and gory chills to satisfy the horror film crowd, but is not written, directed or acted well enough to be a first-rate thriller. A great premise in which three friends are stranded on a chairlift in the dead of winter is squandered to satisfy the expectations of the genre,” The Hollywood Reporter‘s disappointed James Greenberg notes.  Tim Grierson, in Screen, suspects “Frozen” is “hoping to be a low-budget, word-of-mouth success along the lines of The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity. More likely, though, Frozen will quickly cool off theatrically before moving to ancillaries.” 

Dread Central investigates claims of some funny things happening to people who see the film, “‘there’s been an incident at all three screenings,’ said Green. ‘Somebody passed out in the Egyptian the first night, two people vomited during the second screening (one of whom came back into the theatre to finish the movie, which I thought was pretty cool), and then again as we were leaving last night, the theatre manager told us someone had passed out in the bathroom.’”  Cinematical as an interview with Green in front of a snowy (and foreboding!) Park City backdrop.