A wealthy industrialist arranges for his body to be kept on ice in a high-tech cryonic chamber. When the instructions are not followed properly, he emerges from the frozen crypt as an empty, soulless creature with an appetite for destruction.
Congelado, Wes Craven's Chiller, Frozen Man, Chiller – Kalt wie Eis, Sonno di ghiaccio, Hibernado vivo, Ürperti
USAPG-13
USA
Film #17 of Hoop-tober 3
It's tough work being a Wes Craven completionist.
Hoo boy, this was a mess. A guy is cryogenically frozen and then revived except he has no soul when he’s brought back. There’s barely even an interesting story there so it’s not like you can blame Wes too much because he really had nothing to work with.
The cast is decent but not even Jill Schoelen can do enough to make this that memorable even though she raises the star rating just by being in it. And Beatrice Straight hams it up quite beautifully. Also, there are actually some nice gooey practical effects which was part of what made 80’s TV movies so good, but there are plenty of them out there with better special effects and a better story so.....yeah I got nothin here. It’s all just very blah, but hey at least some people got paid right?
The copy I watched was recorded from TV, so it was quite funny when I saw the CBS Wednesday Night films bit at the beginning. A pretty terrible made for TV film. Miles needs to chill goddamn. Poor acting, boring story and near to no effort put into the filmmaking.
#79
It is my ultimate goal in life to have seen every Wes Craven film. I'm getting there slowly but it’s a tricky job. Partly because one or two of his films aren't very easy to get hold of. And also because a few of them are absolutely terrible. This is now my least favourite, along with The Hills Have Eyes Part II.
The Hills Have Eyes Part Deux had serious production issues. It’s a poor movie, but I can understand why. Chiller is just a bad story, almost devoid of events of any description. Craven does his best with it, there is some moody atmosphere but it's not enough to salvage the overall…
wonder how many versions of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol this makes?
Only sort of the reverse happens
I realize I came up with a 'Scrooged' magic-ing scenario for the Trump presidency last xmas but have since come to realize I really really wished the problem is his not caring about anything as caring about the wrong things is much, much, much, much worse
Sorry CW: the election
Actually that's all I had. I like Wes Craven TV world and would like to live here. I think maybe part of it is that we can ALL live in alternate realities and there are too many of them to keep track of. I could ask who does it hurt to fragment…
Day 21. Jill Schoelen.
Was Wes involved in this?, perhaps for the demon eyes, and skin bubbles. I'd have liked more demon eyes, or crypto nightmares.
Plus side, I can look at Jill Schoelen all day.
After that I need reviving.
With Wes Craven's name cynically emblazoned before the title, I figured it would have been one of those films where he would only have had a minimum of input towards the actual film. Exec produced or something. Colour me surprised then to find out he actually directed this borefest, obviously trying to channel John Carpenters swagger as evidenced by the straight rip of the credit sequence to The Thing. Icey blue light burning through the title card. Even the font of the rest of the credits was the same.
Straight up, this was probably the best part of the film.
Recently awoken from a cryogenic sleep, rich kid Miles (Michael Beck) isn't the man he was 10 years prior. Taking…
Kinda wonderfully stupid and idiotic about some asshole rich son who was frozen then get a new liver transplant and becomes a cold asshole as he runs his family corporation into the ground. It made me laugh.
Spooky Scary Horrorthons 10 - Film #24
A man is awoken from a cryogenic slumber after 10 years, much to the delight of his family and the scientific community alike. But it soon turns out that reviving those in eternal slumber is not such a hot idea. In fact... It is a rather COLD idea.
Honestly though.. Chiller? More like Snoozer, because fuck me was this boring. And yet this is somehow not terrible. For being a little Wes Craven-directed TV film this surprisingly moody, and I do adore that a film which generally takes itself seriously still finds time to have the man awoken from cryogenic sleep whining about the air-conditioning at work, and also worry about hot drinks.…
lifeless exposition dumps sprawled across the most stripped-down rendition of Frankenstein ever committed to film—no distinguishable Cravenisms, no tangible horror or foundational narrative to breathe physicality into performances or motives, no design to ward off predictability with any sort of resolve, or even an ending worth waiting for. just totally hollow. sucks it only exists in what looks to be a VHS scan with blown-out audio. unreal that this was immediately after Nightmare.
Working my way through the last few Wes Craven films I haven't seen, and while I expect most of the remnants to be bad, I'm kind of surprised this has such an abysmal reception. I actually liked it; there are logical issues for sure, and a glacial pace, but the atmosphere is misty and the synth score is a charmer. The performances err on the hammy side, but it works for the material and the whole concept is fun. I'm sure it would've gone over better if it was a bit more slasher and a bit less Wolf of Wall Street, but they still sneak a few goopy practical effects in. It's a fine little made for TV flick in my opinion.
The only existing transfer (to my knowledge) borders on unwatchable; the image, which looks like a badly degraded VHS, is passable, but the audio track is blown out and almost inaudible at times. As others have noted, someone needs to make a restoration happen ... Vinegar Syndrome? Arrow? Scream Factory?
Craven is restrained by the television format, but this is a really interesting and cogent depiction of corporate soullessness (made in the middle of Regan's presidential term). It's actually quite elegantly structured and staged, much stronger than all the dismissive reviews led me to believe. I dig the synthesizer score and the brief flashes of Stan Winston's artistry.
