Director: Reynir Lyngdal,
Starring: Anna Gunndis Guomundsdottir, Bjorn Thors,
Running Time: 79 Minutes
Certificate: 15
I am a true lover of film. I always try and identify what I liked about a film, even if the film was awful. Even when it comes to dross such as the likes of EPIC MOVIE, I will put my hands up and admit to the one joke that made me laugh. Therefore it gives me no pleasure in saying that FROST has next to no redeemable qualities whatsoever, which makes it very difficult to make this criticism constructive.
An Icelandic found-footage film touted as THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT meets THE THING, this sounded right up my alley, and yes the potential is there. However, found-footage is not an excuse for making a cheap film. Found-footage should be utilised to self-enforce restrictions that tell a story in a unique way. FROST has other ideas, so when its motives do not fit inside the confines of the medium, it decides to just break the rules. This leads to added sound effects and dramatic “DUN”s in an attempt to induce jump scares. That, my friends, is cheating. At least stick to the very easy to follow rules, otherwise you have the reverse effect.
The simple plot involves a filmmaker, Gunnar (Thors) visiting his physiologist girlfriend, Agla (Guomundsdottir) to make a film on her research. Shortly after his arrival, everybody bar himself and Agla go missing and the two are left to wonder the frozen landscape. After that, nothing really happens at all. You get the obvious moments of missing snowmobiles, downed communication, etcetera, but it’s all so mind numbingly dull. Whenever something looks as though it is about to happen, the film becomes distorted and the sound cuts out. If this happens once in a found footage horror then I’m not too bothered, but FROST thinks it can do it constantly.
Not only does it break the rules while failing to be engaging, FROST also contradicts its, admittedly very weak, characters. Gunnar is the filmmaker who keeps insisting that they continue to film, while Agla bitches and moans at him. That is until the plot needs to be moved forward so in a scene straight after questioning Gunnar, Agla films herself being sick. This is also confusing as it seems as though her vomiting comes on suddenly, yet she manages to set up the camera to capture exactly what is happening.
FROST fails to stick to its concept, has inconsistent characters, isn’t scary, trudges through 79 minutes without anything of note taking place, and doesn’t seem to have very high ambitions. On the plus side, they have a nice location to shoot, which makes me believe the location was chosen first and a plot made up as they went along. FROST is a rare timewaster of a film which can’t be recommended on any level.
[usr=1]FROST is released on DVD on 10th February.
