Frozen - Ice Cold Abyss - DVD

Film: With "Hatchet" Adam Green has not only created a convincing homage to the slashers of the 80s, but he has also managed to create a small genre cult film. Before sending his deformed killer Victor Crowley through the swamps of New Orleans a second time, he made the small but extremely mean shocker "Frozen - Ice Cold Abyss", which effectively moves the premise of films like "Open Water" into a ski lift.

The party vacation at the ski resort Joe (Shawn Ashmore, "X-Men") had hoped for didn't happen, as his buddy Dan (Kevin Zegers, "Gossip Girl") absolutely had to bring his girlfriend Parker (Emma Bell, "The Walking Dead"). Still, the three wanted to have fun despite the tense mood, and so the ski runs are taken to the limit. Even when the ski lift is about to be shut down for the week, the friends are still able to talk the ski patrol into taking them to the top for one last run. Too bad, though, that a misunderstanding causes the lift to be shut down before they reach the run. And so Joe, Dan and Parker are stuck in the lift, surrounded by darkness and freezing cold. There is no help in sight, as the lift will not be back in operation for a few days. And so begins a fight for survival that pushes the three friends to the limits of their strength - and far beyond...

"Frozen - Ice Cold Abyss" is in itself a very simply knitted film that makes use of many familiar ideas, but combines them very effectively into something entirely new. Most of the time the three protagonists can only be observed during their conversations, but even here a certain tension is created, as it becomes more and more obvious how panic and hopelessness defeat youthful recklessness. That the three don't always behave particularly intelligently is a law of the genre. But the question of how one would behave oneself in such a situation grows more interesting by the minute.

What Adam Green deserves credit for is that he largely eschews GCI effects in favor of classic craftsmanship. For the cast and crew, this meant shooting not in a warm studio in front of a green screen, but in freezing cold in hard-to-reach terrain. For the viewer, however, this means more authenticity and therefore more tension. You can almost feel the cold and more than understand the hunger and desperation of those trapped in the ski lift.

A few, but quite effective bloody effects then break the ominous silence every now and then. Towards the end, the whole thing loses a bit of intensity, but good entertainment the film offers even then. Who "Open Water" would like and once again really good, handmade thrill to experience, which should "Frozen - Ice Cold Abyss" in no case miss.

Picture + Sound: The sound is dominated by the atmospheric ambient sounds, which are both on the German, as well as on the English soundtrack well come into their own. Whether it's the mechanical crashing of the cable car, the howling of the wind, the whirring of the cables or the falling of the wet snow, as that comes across very well. The dialogue is a bit stronger in the German version, though also a bit more front mixed. They sound more harmonious in the English version, but are also less intelligible in some scenes.

The image is clean and has a pleasing level of sharpness and decent detail, even in the many dark scenes. The white of the snow and the black of the night are the dominant colors, but the rest of the color palette is harmonious with the action as well. Good!

Extras: The extras focus on the nearly 50-minute making of, which provides a very good insight into the difficulties of production. The shooting under the most unpleasant weather conditions in difficult to access terrain is illuminated in an entertaining as well as interesting way and above all pleasantly free of commercials. The only drawback here: actually this Making of is only the final part of a longer documentary (that's why there's a "Part 4" above the title), the remaining three parts of which can be seen on the DVDs in the USA and England, but unfortunately not in Germany. After all, this is the longest and most worth seeing part, so that the interested viewer can definitely enjoy the most important information and best scenes.

In addition, there are three cut scenes, one of which actually shows the death of a character, which is only audible in the film. Green never intended to include this scene in the film, but had shot it anyway in case the international market demanded more blood. However, the film is actually more effective without this graphic scene.

Unfortunately, there are no optional subtitles to go with the extras, which is a real shame, especially with the making of.

Conclusion: "Frozen - Ice Cold Abyss" is a tense thriller in the style of "Open Water". A thrilling, despite the vastness of the landscape very claustrophobic thriller, which can be warmly recommended to friends of the quieter thrill. The technical realization of the DVD corresponds well to the atmosphere of the film and also the bonus material can, despite the lack of subtitles, more than worth seeing. Recommendable

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp