Horror Movie Review: Hypothermia (2010)

Check out that movie poster! Pretty sweet huh? It was enough to convince me to watch it…well, that & the excellent Michael Rooker. That poster promises a lot that this movie totally fails to delivery, in fact its down-right embarrassing.

Ray (Michael Rooker) is looking forward to a weekend of ice-fishing with his family (wife, grown-up son & his girlfriend). For him it is a chance to bond while for his son it is a chance to tell his father about his future travelling plans.

The weekend peace is disturbed by the loud arrival of Steve & his son Steve Jnr. Who also are there to fish, albeit with a lot more noise & obnoxious behaviour. However when something under the ice wakes up & attacks the 2 families have to work together to survive.

Decent concept right? Imagine being trapped on an ice lake while something hunts you under the ice. You don’t have anywhere to go & any attempt to get away results in you being attacked. That is what I expected…I did not get that. Instead I got a rubbish horror movie filled plot holes, dumb behaviour & a man in a rubber suit.

Don’t believe me?

See!?

The tension that briefly exists between Ray & Steve senior over the amount of noise they are creating is short-lived & although his behaviour is obnoxious he treats Ray & his family very respectably. He even invites them over to his patch for dinner & beer! During the extremely boring first half you see that Ray’s son (awful actor with about as much personality as a plank) is struggling to tell his father that he wants to travel the world. It implies that his father is going to have a huge problem with it but when it comes out Ray is disappointed but takes it surprisingly well! It’s another implied thing that falls completely flat, like the monster under the ice…

During early flashes that the families see under the ice (they think it is a huge fish) the CGI implies something pretty monstrous but the first time it is seen on the ice (it can walk on the ice as well) it is the most obviously a man in a rubber suit. No seriously…it is impossible to describe how shoddy the monster is. They don’t even try to hide it & keep the monster shrouded in darkness, it is seen walking in broad daylight & up close.

Freakin’ awful…

For a movie made in 2010 this is unbelievable & the movie tries to take itself so seriously for such a laughable design. It turns an average movie into something so much worse.

I could go on about the awful rubber fish-man thing for ages but there were some good parts in the movie. The implication that the venom of the rubber fish-man would cause you see like it does & form a telepathic link interested me. It is used for only 2 reasons in the end, 1 to show how sick Steve Jnr is & the awful ending.

In the end Ray’s son dies in a shouldn’t be funny but actually is scene where he is lying on the floor of the Steve Snr’s mobile home & a rubber fish-man’s arm comes through the drain & rips his throat out. It was gory & unexpected I will admit…There are other deaths throughout but nothing on this level.

The film draws to a close with the realisation that it hears noise (no way!) & attacks out of holes it has created on the ice. Ray looks through a pair of binoculars to check if there is any danger on their way off the ice. Quite clearly through the binoculars we can see a huge hole right by the path back up their cabin but he says everything is fine. Confused much?

Unsurprisingly they get attacked resulting in Ray’s death & his wife (having earlier sucked out poison from her sons wound) telepathically begs forgiveness from the rubber fish-man who, after snarling about a bit, promptly lets her & the dead sons girlfriend go.

The End…err….what?

This would have scored higher had it not been for the monster. It just makes no sense why they would do the rubber suit option in 2010 especially after using CGI elsewhere. It could be forgiven if the movie had an ounce of black comedy but it plays it totally straight. Oh & in no way is this the kind of movie that is so bad, its good.