As our current cinema world of vampires and zombies pulls the thriller genre further from the real world, the stuff rooted in reality feels even more frightening. The brain is far more afraid of the possible than the impossible, and Green knows this. With Frozen, he creates a seasonal opposite to the treacherous Open Water (and even makes a small reference to that film); this time, instead of a couple stranded in the deep sea, a trio of friends is forgotten while dangling up in the air. As they sit high above a local New England mountain, the lift power is turned off and the ski area closed. For five days.
Frozen begins to prick away at your teeny initial fears while Green ratchets up the tension quietly and effectively. He mixes dialogue-driven conflict, gross-out trouble and do-or-die decision-making, all as brutal weather beats down and survival seems increasingly unlikely.
Green, part of a small cadre of ambitious storytellers (he produced Paul Solet's creepy Grace while writing Frozen), has an excellent sense of rhythm -- keep in mind, the bulk of the movie focuses on three people sitting in a chair lift -- and a good eye for casting. He gets decent work from Kevin Zegers (Dawn of the Dead) and even better performances from Shawn Ashmore (X-Men: The Last Stand's 'Iceman', hah!) and newcomer Emma Bell. One can imagine that pretending to be stranded and unable to move must be similar to acting in front of a green screen while standing still. Not a lot of surrounding environment to motivate your acting. Still, the emotion feels real, even when the conversation dances around a few clichés.
The triumph of Frozen comes with how Green effortlessly keeps the film moving. He creates a challenge within the larger dilemma, adds something unexpected, and moves on to the next. There's variety to the ideas and the pacing, keeping the audience on its collective toes. Every fictional writer creates problems for his characters so they'll be forced to figure out solutions; as with many thrillers, Green strips that approach to its core, and does so quite well. You have to let a thing or two slide (why doesn't the girl just snap her top button closed?), but it's worth it.
Best of all, Frozen is sneaky, but I'm not sure that's intended. There's an awkward 1980s teen comedy sensibility to the setup -- I'm guessing the actors weren't yet familiar with one another. For a few minutes, it's easy to think the movie will be amateurish and undemanding. But by the time reality sets in, the acting feels smoother, the music presses harder and the ominous camera crane moves begin. Hold on tight. And keep your ski gloves on.
