The Movie
It's The Day After Tomorrow meets Cabin Fever in the low-budget scarer The Thaw. (Do you think Lionsgate added "The" to help avoid confusion with their hit horror franchise, Saw?) One of a quartet of Ghost House Underground-branded releases, "hand-picked" by Evil Dead/Drag Me to Hell partners Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, Thaw combines the hot-button topic of global warming with the skin-crawling notion of parasitic insects.
When a noted environmental expert (Val Kilmer) stumbles upon a wooly mammoth carcass in some rapidly melting arctic ice, it comes complete with a lifetime supply of tiny prehistoric eggs, revived in the modern day and looking for unsuspecting hosts. Numbering among those potential victims is an attractive assortment of college students, cut off from civilization and with no way to escape, naturally. Gross-outs ensue, and although I wasn't terrified, the movie is certainly creepy and intense.
The Picture
After a frustrating opening intentionally constructed of ugly video (and sub-par audio), we're treated to some lovely shots that make use of the full wide 2.35:1 frame, which can be impressive in their detail, particularly the vast expanses of wintry grass. Subtle streaking and other harsh touches soon reveal this to be video rather than a film source, with stock shots even more obviously so and not blending well. Medium shots and close-ups, especially dimly-lit scenes (and there are many) tend to be especially noisy, while blacks are often flat. To be fair, there are some decent digital effects, mostly for the stone-age critters.
The Sound
The musical score is mixed heavily into the rears of the DTS-HS Master Audio 5.1 track, for chilling effect, intending to keep us on the edge of our seats from the get-go, with strong if not subtle bass. A fair amount of effort was clearly put into the mix during post-production; off-camera cues to suggest directionality, people entering and leaving rooms, for example; and one decent explosion. But there's little in this minimalist production to warrant the benefits of high-resolution audio, so it very seldom dazzles.
The Extras
"Behind the Scenes" (13-and-a-half minutes, standard definition) is a by-the-numbers overview of the production, with the actors sounding off as much as we would expect on the movie's pop-culture theme of global warming. "Ghost House Micro Videos" (three minutes, in high definition) is a loud/shrill rapid-fire string of music video segments promoting the Ghost House series of titles.
Final Thoughts
While Thaw is not destined to become a horror classic, it's not great-looking and not the best exploitation of high-resolution audio, it is likely to be a fun rental for a Friday night creep-fest as Halloween draws near.
Product Details
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