Frozen In January – All the Movies

For years and years now I’ve watched horror movies all through October. That’s not an original idea, thousands of people do the same thing as it’s fun to watch scary movies just before Halloween. Then a few years ago I discovered Noirvember and I’ve had a lot of fun with that. So much so that I continue to play with the idea of creating themes every month.

Sometimes they work really well. Last year’s Westerns in March and Awesome ’80s In April allowed me to watch and discover a bunch of interesting movies and I was able to write a few things about them. But I tried to do musicals one month and completely bombed at it, and last year I thought it would be fun to watch one movie I’d never seen from every year I’ve been alive. That was fun but it drifted off after about a decade’s worth of movies.

What I’ve realized is that when I pick a theme that is fairly broad in scope and full of the types of movies I already enjoy then I do fairly well with it, but when I get more specific my watching and writing tend to peter out pretty quick.

So when I pick a genre I like (westerns, horror films) I have no problem watching lots of those films within a given month because it’s the sort of thing I already watch a lot of. Or if I pick something really broad (like the entirety of the 1980s) then there is plenty of variety to choose from and I don’t get bored. 

But when I get too specific (like musicals – a genre I enjoy but in small doses, or last month’s choice – films with isolated and cold settings) then my interest tends to wane before the month is over.

So it was with Frozen in January. I started out strong. I watched quite a few movies that fit the bill. I wrote about a couple but then Covid hit. My wife got it first. She was down and out for a week and I felt fine. Quarantine allowed me to watch quite a few of those films and I had all sorts of thoughts about what to write. Then I got it and it knocked me flat out. I spent a couple of days feeling really sick and another week feeling completely drained of all my energy. I watched comfort TV and forgot about writing anything.

It has been difficult getting back into the groove. Once I started feeling better my desire to watch frozen movies dissolved. My ability to write much of anything was gone.

However, I did want to say a few words about the movies I watched. I won’t write full reviews, but I did want to at least mention those movies as at least a nod towards this month’s theme.

Jeremiah Johnson (1972): Robert Redford plays a real-life mountain man who learns to survive all alone in an unforgiving environment. I wrote a full review here.

Whiteout (2009): Kate Beckinsale plays a US Marshall in Antarctica. Bad things happen. I knew this wasn’t going to be good, but the setup was interesting so I took the plunge. You can read my full thoughts here.

Death Hunt (1981): Charles Bronson plays a guy who moves to the Yukon for a little peace and quiet. He saves a dog and gets hunted for it. It is a dumb, dumb movie, the kind they could only make in the 1980s. You can read my full review here.

The Revenant (2015): Leonardo DiCaprio plays a frontiersman in the 1820s. He gets left for dead after being mauled by a bear and spends the rest of the movie getting pummelled by the elements, the natives, and everything else. But in the end, he finds his revenge. DiCaprio won the Oscar for it and Alejandro González Iñárritu fills it with some stunning direction.

Phantoms (1988): Based on a Dean Koontz book this film focuses on a group of strangers battling evil creatures in a snow-covered small town in Colorado. Despite a good cast (Ben Affleck, Peter O’Toole, Rose McGowan, Liev Schreiber) the film can’t overcome its silly, ridiculous origins.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015): Emma Roberts and Kiernan Shipka play two very different private school girls who spend an isolated, cold Christmas break on campus. A mysterious evil stalks them. This is of the modern school of “elevated horror” where the shots are meticulously crafted, the score is an eerie drone, but very little actually happens.

Insomnia (2002): Christopher Nolan’s remake of a Norwegian thriller stars Al Pacino as a cop with a dark past seeking a killer in the far north where the sun never stops shining. Robin Williams proves he was more than just a funny guy as the killer.

The Thing (1982): John Carpenter’s masterpiece is the perfect entry into my theme. I wrote a whole Friday Night Horror piece on it here.

‘Til Death (2021): Megan Fox stars as a woman who has a romantic evening with her husband at an isolated cabin in the snow-covered woods. She wakes up to find him dead and herself handcuffed to his corpse. That’s a fun premise but the movie makes stupid decision after stupid decision and completely ruins it. I wrote a rambly review over on Letterboxd.

The Lodge (2019): Man takes his two kids and fiancee (Riley Keough) into the woods to his isolated lodge. Then he goes back to the city to work (on Christmas for some reason). Strange things start happening driving her to the brink. The first act is chilly creepy and moody, then it all falls apart.

The Martian (2015): Oh, I had such a thing for this written up in my mind about how this movie fits with my theme. Then I got busy, or distracted, or something, and never put pen to paper. Matt Damon is an astronaut who gets accidentally stranded on Mars (an isolated setting, horrific terrain that can kill him in an instant – see it sort of fits my theme.) I love it. It has become one of my go-to movies when I’m feeling crappy.

The Shining (1980): Stanley Kubrick’s only foray into horror remains one of the all-time greats. I wrote a whole Friday Night Horror piece about it here.

Wind Chill (2007): Emily Blunt and Ashton Homes are two college students sharing a ride home for the holidays. They get stuck in the snow on some isolated back road and are haunted by ghosts. There are some cool ideas here, but ultimately it didn’t work for me.

That’s it. If you made it this far, thanks for reading.