Event

FROZEN SCREAM

Dir. Frank Roach, 1975
USA, 85 min.
In English

For some horror fans, the best feeling a film can inspire isn't shock, or fear, or terror: it's confusion. Films like BOARDINGHOUSE and HORROR HOUSE ON HIGHWAY 5 have developed a fanbase not so much for pulse-pounding terror but for making decisions that throw our notions of pacing and tension entirely out the window. This is the way to approach FROZEN SCREAM, a film that begins like any zero-budget slasher before roaming through dream sequences, flashbacks, completely out-of-nowhere Bogartesque narration and constantly mutating mad science schemes for cryogenic immortality like a cough syrup suckled hallucination. It's a Video Nasty, but miles from the mean-spirited rage of THE TOOLBOX MURDERS or DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE!; the homebrew gore effects end up just as confusing as anything else, and the performance by Renee Harmon (THE EXECUTIONER! PT. II, CINDERELLA 2000, and for those of you around for Endless Bummer VAN NUYS BLVD!) just keeps slipping into an infectious trance. Directed by Frank Roach (whose only other credit is biker scuzzery NOMAD RIDERS), there are few films out there that can throw even the most knowledgeable viewers helpless in its grip like FROZEN SCREAM! LOVE AND IMMORTALITY!