Film review
Directed by Adam Green
Starring Emma Bell, Shawn Ashmore, Kevin Zegers
Release date 24 September 2010 (UK)

Three college students, away on a ski weekend, become trapped in a chair lift in sub-zero temperature. Even worse: the resort is shutting up for the week and help clearly isn't coming…

It’s a simple “high concept” pitch: three people, stuck in a chair lift, freezing and starving, no one around and at the complete mercy of Mother Nature. Now imagine a movie that translates all of the horror, frostbite and humiliation (you do have to go the toilet at some point, don’t you?) of this scenario and you have Frozen: filmed – as with director Green’s previous Hatchet – without any CGI or green screen.

As such, his actors often look, understandably, terrified – and it results in an edge-of-the-seat experience. Moreover, the performances from the main cast members are faultless; for once we want to see a trio of young horror movie characters make it to the end credits in one piece.

Although it would be spoiling things a bit too much to reveal where the central conflict comes from in Frozen (as with 2004’s Open Water, which this bears some similarity to, it is wildlife that causes much of the mayhem) this is one fear flick which is almost guaranteed to haunt you for hours afterwards.

Forget the other young genre pretenders. On the strength of Frozen, Green is the director most likely to claim that “Master of Horror” title from the old guard of Carpenter, Craven, Hooper and Romero. Calum Waddell

VERDICT: 8/10
A suitably chilling viewing experience.