Freeze

source: Freeze

Don't get me wrong now, I absolutely love the horror industry, and when considering movies, I do my very best to find excuses for weaker ones. I can talk about the budget, the experience of the people involved in the making, the conditions, the meddling from the studios and so on. Freeze failed on absolutely every aspect: terrible monsters. The costumes weren't abysmal but their movement, the sounds just amateur all the way. killshots. Whenever it is time for a killshot or for some suspense, we get fade to black and a scream. effects. Practical but sadly all bad. plot. Definitely not ok. You witness more dialogue than anything else. no tensions, eyecandy, nudity, gore. Sadly it really is a prime example of how not to do a horror. For me it looked more like live theatre, also done very badly. It just did not work and it is absolutely impossible to take it serious. You need about 15 minutes and you realise that this one...is not good. Cheers.

I did not turn this movie off. Looking back, I should have. To call it awful would be praising what it really is. I would almost call this a 'no budget' film. An English warship with less than ten people of its crew seen. Uniforms that look almost closet-fresh after two+ years of Arctic conditions. A stowaway that manages to elude being seen for at least a number of months. There is kind of a story, but is threadbare and riddled with plot holes. Supposedly possessing supplies for literally years, one of the first topics is going to half-rations and impending starvation. Everyone is pursuing their individual agendas with near-religious fervor. Even the crises they face are not enough to compel them to work together. The movie is listed as being in the horror & thriller genres. Freeze couldn't scare or thrill a five-year-old. Like other movies made of late, it was even more of a disappointment than I expected. What effects they tried for were beneath poor quality and laughable. Logic was all but absent. Steer clear of this film and put that time to something more engaging, like watching paint dry or an earthworm crawling across a stone.

Well, I've seen it. You need to see it, otherwise you would not believe that something like this is possible in the year of 2022. If this movie would have been shot, let's say in 1925, it might, perhaps, have been a mediocre movie, despite the bad acting, the ridiculous monsters and the obvious disregard of the fact, that it is cold, in fact, freezing, when all around you is covered with snow, and so on., I do wonder who was willing to finance such a disaster, and find actors desperate enough to participate in such a movie. I guess the producer must be a very convincing person with an hypnotic aura.

Pure garbage! This movie starts off with 35 minutes of pointlessness. That's act 1. I don't want to write spoilers here so I'll just tell you it doesn't get better, it gets worse and worse and worse. The plot holes are massive. I mean you would have to suspend all reality of society to believe some of the things that occur to set up the "story" or "plot" or whatever this thing is. There are other parts where you will just shake your head and ask: Why. That's the main question. This is utter nonsense. Unless you're into watching a plot that moves in ways that confuse you and make you annoyed, I would avoid this movie. Not good.

I used to believe I'd happily watch any old crap if it was connected to the Lovecraft mythos. I don't believe that anymore. There's this constant sense that you're watching adults perform in a film written and directed by precocious children. Emotional reactions and behaviour are unconvincing, to put it charitably, and you don't have to know the specifics of history to instinctively know that those uniforms, those guns, that ship, Beatrice Barrilà's hair, the Zippo lighter, a grammaphone and the pastiche of 1930s-ish orchestral jazz that's playing on it do not remotely fit together in the same year. Anything is allowed to be here as long as it's vaguely old-timey; why make any more effort than that? And that's before the captain starts Duke-Nukeming quips such as "Eat this!" or the movie's cackling villain tells the captain that his "puny human brain can't concieve" of how good and fun his plan will be, mwa-ha-ha-haaaa. That's not even the only time that character says "puny human". It's so bad. The only reason those costumes are here - really, the only reason this film exists - is because of season one of The Terror (which, lest we forget, was set in the 1840s). It's painfully obvious. Every diversion the plot tries to make from that can only be made via yet another crudely impersonated drama: Apocalypse Now, Aliens, The Thing. Please don't think, "Hey, I like all of those things!" You won't like this. When you're watching a Deep One wriggle on the spot as if there's a musical number playing, it'll also put you in mind of The Mighty Boosh. It's hard to square the idea that this monster type is your evolutionary superior with the visual appearance of a Halloween house worker. Cliché-riddled community theatre, and it can't even be bothered to complete its very simple mission by the time the credits roll.

Poor acting, poor costumes, poor looking monsters and this is just the 5 min of the movie. Poor acting goes into over acting by hamming it up like a cheap thespian on stage in Bognor Regis. The creatures remind me of the Jon Petwee , Dr Who series run of rubber monsters. Seriously this movie is not worth your time because it sucks on a huge scale. 1/10 for being the worst movie to call itself an horror movie. I haven't left any spoilers in this review because there is no worthy spoilers to be given away in truth because the film is just so awful. If anyone can justify making this movie I will be astounded but I am going for tax loss reasons!

I sat down with a friend to watch this believing it to be a monster horror film. My friend will watch almost anything, the worst TV shows, low budget garbage, really anything at all, but 15 minutes into this and he asked to turn it off. It really is that bad. This movie , in what we saw, has nothing going for it. There is no atmosphere of horror, it looks like they could only afford partial costumes for some of the cast, the acting was like bad dinner theatre, the one female cast member had a modern haircut and looked like she stepped in from some other film, the monsters looked like cheap knock-offs from the Creature from the Black Lagoon films, and everything about this looked cheap and amateurish. Had we continued watching maybe it would have become a so bad it's funny movie, but my friend who'll watch the worst junk out there insisted we give up and I agreed.

I thought I'd check out this movie as I am a fan of director Charlie Steeds previous work which includes the really fun A Werewolf in England which was very inspired by the wacky horror fun of Evil Dead II. Freeze is a much more serious film and fans of Lovecraft will find lots to enjoy here. It reminded me of Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness meets The Terror, particularly with the elements of an expedition gone wrong and an ancient civilisation being uncovered in the arctic. The cast is strong, with some returning faces from Steeds previous work and genre favourites like Johnny Vivash (Book of Monsters) who gives a particularly fantastic performance. The creatures are entirely practical effects and are on screen enough to keep monster fans happy. The locations in the film are also incredible, with scenes taking place on a ship, a cave and the arctic tundra. It's clear these are real locations and not studio sets or green screen, giving the movie a very authentic feel. I must admit that I felt the cold and sympathised with the freezing actors as they trudged across the deep snow. It's clear that Steeds spent his small budget well and every penny has been spent on the screen, successfully conveying the desolate dread of the unrelenting arctic and the secrets the crew uncover there. One to check out for fans of Lovecraft and creature features!

I'm giving this film 9 stars. I rarely give out 9 stars. This may seem confusing to some people because I'm a harsh, but honest critic. Now, the be certain, this film has flaws. Many flaws. Those flaws have already been mentioned in other reviews and anyone who has seen a movie in their lifetime could point out Freeze's shortcomings instantly. Yet, I'm giving Freeze 9 stars because of it's mere existence. Lots of people talk about writing a horror movie script, especially HP Lovecraft fans who would like to see more movies based on his fiction, but rarely does anyone actually attempt to write a script, let alone finish it. Lots of people talk about producing a feature length film, and hardly anyone actually puts forth the effort to make it happen. Hardly anyone who actually get a film produced can get that film in front of an audience. Any audience. Especially low budget films. And most low budget horror movies are claustrophobic, tired tales of people being chased by serial killers in the woods. So to produce a film with a tiny crew that takes on a Lovecraftian story set in the Arctic is, quite frankly, incredible. I don't know Charlie Steeds, or anyone else who made this film, but I will offer this advice should one of them come across this review. Charlie, your talent isn't as a director. Nor is it as a great cinematographer or writer for that matter. You, sir, are a producer. And you could be a producer that shakes the world. To have the motivation, drive, ambition, and guts to put together this movie and actually get it made is a feat that only those who have tried it themselves could ever appreciate. For your next project, you need to embrace the role of producer. Pour over scripts until you find one that one cultivated by someone who understands story and dialog, and that personally moves you. Go recruit some fledgling director who has a talent for telling stories using the art of film. Go find a young, hungry cinematographer who is dying to show the world how they can paint with light (they're easy to recognize because they all have very strong opinions about prime lenses). Go find an art director who is passionate about building a color palette with costumes and props. And please, find a sound person who will insist on getting just the right mic placement, and a composer who is dying for the world to hear their music. Build up this team, convey your dedication and enthusiasm. Get them caught up in a shared vision and others will naturally gravitate to you and your next project. If you can make Freeze with a skeleton crew, imagine what you could do with a team of people each dedicated to different aspects of the craft. I hope to see more of your films in the future.