Frozen In January – All the Movies

the revenant

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.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: The Thing (1982)

the thing movie poster

When I was first thinking about this month’s theme – Frozen in January – it was John Carpenter’s The Thing that came to mind. It is the perfect encapsulation of what I was going for. Its characters are trapped in an isolated place covered in snow and ice. An external force causes an already tense situation into turmoil. The weather and the cold, frozen setting aren’t just window dressing, they help inform the story. I actually didn’t love the movie the first time I watched it, but with each subsequent viewing, I like it more and more. Now I think it is just about perfect.

The Thing is based upon a novella by John W. Campbell entitled Who Goes There?. It was previously adapted into the pretty great film in 1951, The Thing From Another World.

Set in an American research station in Antarctica The Thing stars Kurt Russell (and Wilford Brimley, and Keith David, and T.K. Carter and others, it really is a great cast) as a group of men who are already pushed beyond their limits. The isolation and the freezing weather are getting to them.

This is why, when a helicopter from the Norwegian station flies in shooting at some dog, and then at our heroes, they don’t initially think something is really wrong. They just chalk it up to those guys going stir-crazy.

I’ve seen this movie several times and I always forget how long it takes to get to the scenes I remember. The scenes in which the shape-shifting alien starts wiping everybody out. But before that, there are long, tension-building scenes, in which they try to figure out what’s going on at the Norwegian base. You’d think I’d remember them finding an alien spacecraft but I never do.

I think that is a testament to just how incredible the back half of this movie is. One of the many things I love about The Thing is that, unlike most of the films I’ve watched in this series, it really uses the freezing, isolated setting to help build the tension. As things ratchet up with the alien, we fully understand how there is no escape. Nowhere to go. No one will come to their rescue.

The alien is a shape-shifter so it can look like any one of them. No one knows who is human or something else. Carpenter makes us feel every moment of that horror.

The practical effects do look a bit unreal. I think that’s a big part of what I didn’t like about it on my first watch. They aren’t natural or realistic looking and that can take you out of the moment. Now I find that part of the film’s charm. The alien isn’t supposed to look real, not when it’s shifting into a chest cavity that can chop your hands off. It is supposed to look, well, alien. And cool. They look so cool. I’d love to see a behind-the-scenes look at how they made them.

John Carpenter really was a master of horror for so many years. The more I watch his classic films (and I’ve seen most of them several times) the more I think he’s one of the best who ever did it.

Frozen In January: Death Hunt (1981)

death hunt

Whenever I watch a movie I inevitably go to Letterboxd to see what other people think of it. Letterboxd is like social media for movie nerds. You can log movies, see how many movies by an actor you’ve previously watched, check out stats (it is what I use to write all my movie journal posts), write reviews, and much more. You can also follow other users and when you do it will automatically show you their reviews.

I follow a lot of movie critics and various other users whose reviews I like to read, or who tend to have similar tastes as me. It is always interesting to see what others think of a movie I’ve just watched. It is especially interesting when their opinions differ from mine. It is fascinating to me to see when people hate a movie I loved for love a movie I hated.

I thought Death Hunt was dumb. It is the kind of movie they made a lot of in the early 1980s – silly action films with a couple of big stars, a little sexy, some comedy, and a lot of gunplay and explosions. I’m not necessarily opposed to that sort of thing as you can see from my reviews of various Burt Reynolds movies, but I have to be in the right mood.

I guess I wasn’t in the right mood yesterday when I watched Death Hunt because looking at Letterboxd most of the reviews I saw seemed to think it was a pretty fun movie. You can read between the lines that no one thinks it’s an actual good movie, but entertaining isn’t always good.

Anyway, the film is set in the Yukon Territory way up North in Canada in the 1930s. Albert Johnson (Charles Bronson), on his way home from a long stint in America, comes across an organized dogfight. The losing dog is badly injured and its owner, Hazel (Ed Lauter) is ready to do it in. Albert stops forcibly stops him then pays him $200 and takes the dog home.

With Albert gone Hazel finds his courage and reports the incident as a dog theft to Edgar Millen (Lee Marvin) of the local Canadian Mounties. Edgar is of the old and grizzled but fair and kind variety (in the Lee Marvin type).

Edgar knows Hazel and figures his story is bupkis, and tells him to go away. Hazel doesn’t like that and takes a group of his buddies up to Albert’s cabin to give him what for. Albert, being played by Charles Bronson, takes their what for and gives it back, leaving one guy dead on the ground.

Now that a man’s dead Edgar has to investigate, but instead of going to Albert alone and having a chat he takes an entire posse with him, including Hazel and his friend – all armed to the teeth with shotguns and rifles. His cabin surrounded Edgar walks up to Albert’s place to ask him to come alone peacefully. When he refuses Edgar lets the men shoot the cabin to bits. When that doesn’t work he throws dynamite at it, blowing the thing sky high.

It was probably at this point that I gave up on the film. Blowing a man’s house (and presumably him) to pieces isn’t good police work. Especially when you know that the killing you want to arrest him was probably self-defense. But the film wants them to have a chase and so that’s what it gives them.

Amazingly Albert survives the explosion and hits the road (or rather the icy mountain paths) with Edgar hot on his tail. The rest of the film becomes one long chase.

Made just a couple of years after Death Wish, Death Hunt is clearly trying to cash in on that film’s success. But Death Wish had a specific point of view. In those films, Charles Bronson is a good guy driven to revenge by evil criminals (don’t get me wrong that film’s morality is wonky as hell, but it does have a point of view). Here Albert is a rather dubious character and as noted Marvin isn’t exactly clean cut so there isn’t an obvious person to root for. Except the film clearly wants us rooting for someone, it just doesn’t seem sure as to who. This brings it all to a finale that just kind of whimpers where it ought to bang.

I’m putting way too much thought into all of this, more than the creators of the film seem to have done. It is all meant as a good time at the movies with a little comedy and some big action and good stars and nothing more. This is too many words already, but I should mention Carl Weathers plays Lee Marvin’s good time buddy. Oh, and Angie Dickinson plays Marvin’s love interest, who has so little to do I almost forgot about her.

I suspect if I had poured myself a couple of drinks and invited some friends over I would have had fun with it. But sitting alone on my couch while my wife is upstairs with Covid and my daughter is hiding out in her room I found it all kind of vapid and annoying.

Frozen in January: Whiteout (2009)

whiteout movie

Sometimes you watch a movie knowing ahead of time it is going to be bad. You do so thinking maybe it won’t be that bad. Maybe it will at least be entertaining. And maybe, just maybe, it will defy expectations and actually be pretty good.

Mostly, you turn out wrong.

Or maybe that’s just me.

I knew going into it Whiteout wouldn’t be good. It actually has a kernel of an interesting idea – a lone US Marshall in Antarctica must solve a murder. But that’s also the kind of snappy idea that Hollywood all too often screws up.

I should have known not to watch it when I realized it stars Kate Beckinsale. I don’t actively hate Kate Beckinsale. I don’t think she’s necessarily a bad actress. She just has a habit of starring in a lot of bad movies. I don’t know if she just has bad taste, or she’s rarely offered anything any good or what. Maybe she has a terrible agent. But looking through her filmography I see very few movies that I either thought were good or that look anything like interesting.

But, like I said, this film has a setup that could be really cool so I took the plunge.

The biggest problem with the film is that it doesn’t know whether it wants to be a mystery, a thriller, or a horror film. It even throws in a bit of World War II conspiracy for good measure.

Beckinsale plays Carrie Stetko, the sole US Marshall in Antarctica. Most of the base is preparing to fly out. Winter is coming and at the bottom of the world, winter is long and hard. Minimal staff is required.

Stetko usually stays but this time she’s leaving. As is her friend, the base’s only doctor, John Fury (Tom Skerritt). As an example of just how poorly this film thinks things through that is the base’s only law enforcement agent and doctor leaving for several months. There is no indication that anyone is being sent to replace them. While most of the personnel do leave for the winter, not all of them do. What happens when a crime is committed or someone needs healthcare?

But of course, the film doesn’t think about this because it knows those two characters aren’t going to be leaving the base. A crime will be committed and someone will need medical attention and they will stay.

A body is found lying face down in a remote part – a “no man’s land” of the continent. His face is smashed to bits so it is impossible to tell who he is. Stetko and Fury investigate. Stetko realizes he must have taken a great fall. She knows this because, as we see in a flashback she once shot a man causing him to take a tumble out of a high-rise building.

The film loves its flashbacks. They pretty much all surround that one event in Stetko’s life, but the film doles it out like it is some great mystery that will reveal some insight into this current case. But really it is a pretty simple thing that lets us know what she’s doing in remote Antarctica in the first place.

The murder leads them to a remote station which then leads them to a WWII airplane buried in the snow. This should be an interesting mystery, a weird surprise for the audience. Except the film began with us watching the plane crash and showed us why. The only mystery left is what was in the box on the plane that everyone winds up fighting over. It might be old nuclear stuff which would be bad. Really bad. I guess.

Then Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht), a United Nations security agent shows up. He’s there awfully fast for a guy who wasn’t in Antarctica before the movie began. Making us think perhaps he’s the killer. He’s not, but the movie likes throwing red herrings out like that. Anyone who has seen an episode of Law and Order will be able to figure out who the Big Bad really is before he’s revealed.

Oh, also, there is a huge storm rolling in causing the entire base to be evacuated in a few hours. Because this film doesn’t have enough going on, it needs to add that into the mix.

It is based on a graphic novel so maybe some of the script problems come from the source material. All of the plot twists and turns might work better in a comic. I’ve just started reading the book and it does seem to be more of a mystery than anything, and it definitely doesn’t begin with the plane crash so I’m prepared to say most of the film’s problems do come from the script. But only time will tell on that front.

Beckinsale isn’t bad. I don’t think she’s a particularly bad actress. But she doesn’t elevate the material either. And the material is bad. It is too much of everything and not enough of something specific.

Frozen In January: Jeremiah Johnson (1972)

jeremiah johnson poster

Jeremiah Johnson was a real mountain man who, as legend has it, killed, scalped, and ate the livers of some 300 Crow Indians. From what I’ve read he seems like a pretty rough-and-tumble guy. Director Sydney Pollack teamed up with Robert Redford and turned him into some kind of folk hero in their film based upon the legend.

Redford plays Johnson as a man who initially heads to the mountains to get away from society and truly become something, some kind of man. He isn’t naive or untrained like Chris McCandless from Into the Wild. He has some skills hunting and surviving in the wild. Just getting to the Rockies in the late 1800s was an adventure in itself.

But life in the mountains is different than life in the plains. Johnson find himself in trouble. He struggles making fire in the cold, wind, and snow. He can’t catch a fish in the mountain streams. He has better luck with wild game, but not much.

Cold and nearly starved, he stumbles across an old grisly bear hunter named Bear Claw (Will Greer). The old man teaches him how to survive in the mountains. He becomes good at it. He thrives. He learns the ways of the various Indian tribes in the area, but doesn’t befriend them. He’s a man who likes to be alone.

In time he comes across a cabin that has been attacked by Indians. A child was killed, and the husband is missing. A young boy has survived and his mother who has gone crazy from the ordeal. Johnson begins caring for the boy. Later Johnson makes a mistake in a trade with a Flathead tribe and finds himself with a wife.

This man of solitude now finds himself with a family. It is hard on him at first, especially since he does not speak his Crow wife’s language and the boy is mute, but he learns to love them and they make a life together.

Then tragedy hits and Johnson becomes the liver-eating man of legend.

Pollack and cinematographer Duke Callaghan film it like poetry. Pollack calls it his silent picture and there are long scenes in which not a word is spoken. Shot in and around the Rocky Mountains in Utah it is often stunningly beautiful. Redford does some of his best work. All of this is periodically puncturated by songs from Tim McIntire and John Rubinstein. They are sung in the Appalachian folk tradition and are a little too on the nose declaring the themes of the film. Also they are just bad.

It is interesting that they turned this story of a rugged mountain man, known for his ruthless slaying of countless natives into the story of a good man who just wants to be left alone, at peace in nature. He rarely takes action himself, the mountains or outsiders force him into it. Even in the end when he becomes the Crow Slayer, it is always them who attack him. It does feel like they are turning into a folk hero. I doubt that is where the truth really lies. But we’ll never really know the truth anyway, as the true story was turned into legend long ago and the facts have long since been lost.

Not that it matters. True or not the film is quite good, longing and beautiful. A tale of a time long past, but of mountains that still amaze with their grandeur.

Frozen in January

I truly do love coming up with movie themes for each month. They help focus my watching in the most interesting ways. Over the last couple of years, I’ve learned that I’m rarely going to really push the bounds of the types of cinema I’m apt to watch. I’m never going to watch a Danish documentary on wooden shoes or whatever, but these themes do help me focus my attention.

They do push me to watch movies I’ve been meaning to watch but keep putting off for some reason. And they help me stumble across movies I might not otherwise discover.

So for January, I thought I’d seek out winter movies. I’m looking for movies where the protagonists are trapped in a blizzard, or lost in some godforsaken wilderness, surrounded by ice and snow. My two touchpoints are John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) in which a group of men find themselves in Antarctica being attacked by a shape-shifting alien, and Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (2015) whereupon a group of travelers are stranded in a snowbound cabin in the woods.

I’m looking for isolation and the cold, cold, winter with characters surrounded by ice and snow.

What could be better to watch during the frozen, lonely days of January?