FROZEN

It is a day of leisure for Dan, Joe, and Parker, three friends who decide to spend the end of the weekend in the mountains skiing. Eager for one last thrilling nighttime descent, the three ask the slope patroller to let them take one last ride on the cable car to reach the summit. The man agrees, but an unexpected event forces him to leave his post, leaving the task of closing the cable car to a colleague. A misunderstanding causes the substitute to block the cable car before the three friends reach the summit. For Dan, Parker, and Joe, a nightmarish situation looms: suspended fifteen meters high, in the freezing cold, and with the realization that the ski resort will not reopen until the following Friday! "Frozen" is not a horror film in the canonical sense of the genre, but it manages to instill unease and anguish more than any torture porn or most films with ghosts and various monsters. As often happens with these dramatic and minimalist thrillers (one location and very few actors on stage), it is an experience rather than a simple casual viewing of a film, and "Frozen" manages to reach such high peaks in the emotional transport of the viewer that it can be considered one of the scariest films of recent times. Behind the camera sits the unexpected Adam Green, a young and talented filmmaker who effortlessly transitions from the slasher splatter "Hatchet" to this high-altitude thriller, only to dive back into splatter with "Hatchet 2". Green is undoubtedly a guy to keep an eye on because if with "Hatchet" he crafted a successful and lighthearted homage to "Friday the 13th" and its epigones without taking himself seriously, with "Frozen" blood and demence are set aside, and the focus is directly on the viewer's nerves. What happens to the protagonists of this film is terrible, and the effects of freezing on the human body are shown in a realistic and painful way: the skin dries up and cracks, then the cold burns it until it comes off. The flesh is tormented by the ice and other factors that take the form of ravenous wolves, sharp cables, and hallucinated falls into the void. The discomfort of the protagonists coincides with the discomfort of the viewers, and it is not so much the skin that peels off, the bones that break, or the entrails scattered on the snow that drag us and them into the nightmare, but rather the psychological tension that is created. Green, who writes as well as directs, manages to create notable peaks of psychological tension, and this also happens thanks to the excellent performances of the actors. Joe (Shawn Ashmore of "X-Men"), Dan (Kevin Zegers of "Dawn of the Dead"), and Parker (Emma Bell of "The Walking Dead") are perfectly aware of what awaits them; they know that if it is not the cold that will kill them, it will be the wolves or other mountain beasts. Inevitably, internal conflicts arise within the small group; the antipathies between Joe and Parker surface despite the boy's previous attempts to mask them to avoid hurting his friend Dan, Parker's boyfriend. The interactive dynamics among the three young people are realistic, and for once, they do not fall into stereotypes or the irritating unreality of the behavior of most young protagonists in genre films. To all this, we add intelligent and well-written dialogues in which the characters go from the exuberance of a boisterous day to gradually showing their fragility and humanity. Among the most memorable scenes in "Frozen," it is worth mentioning the wolf attack and the attempt to escape via cables, although the scene that probably best describes the sense of vulnerability of the three protagonists is the one in which Parker/Emma Bell is forced to urinate on the seat while everything around her sleeps. The scene shows the annihilation of the person, the annihilation of a girl who, between tears, is forced to endure what for her is the worst humiliation, creating in just over a minute a perfect summary of the absurd alienation that the situation is creating in the characters. In short, tension is always high despite the "static" forced, beautiful screenplay and witty dialogues, good actors (with Shawn Ashmore standing out), scenes of physical and psychological pain really memorable and in a cameo also appears Kane "Jason Voorhees" Hodder. What more could you ask for? And then it is the case to say: "Frozen" is a chilling film!