Chill (2007)

Must See Movie...

From my favorite movies..

A Masterpiece!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The works of Howard Phillip Lovecraft continue to thwart film makers. His tales, written in the early 1900's are, invariably, updated to present day and forced to mix with today's fads, trends and "movie absorbing mind set". For the most part, they don't work, like this shot at the trophy. Anything by good Ol' H.P. should be a period piece like Jackson's "King Kong"...unless you are extremely brilliant. The makers of "Chill", while sincere, failed to create the magic to move "Cool Air" (which this movie is based upon) from short-story written in 1926 to a contemporary story. No fault, no foul ... a near impossible thing to do. Lovecraft excruciatingly cultivated sinister and dark atmosphere with climactic punctuations of visual action, almost the opposite of current films that are visually heavy to create the deep and dark unease (something they seldom do because ... perhaps ... they are running a formula in reverse?) ... Dan O'Bannon nearly nailed it with "The Resurrected" from Lovecraft's "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward". Unfortunately, this attempt to bring "Cool Air" to the screen is a lousy shot at a Lovecraft adaptation and can't stand on its own as a horror film. Kudos for the effort but ... way big miss.

I rented this out of boredom on a Sunday night, and I regret it. I love bad movies. I feel an affection for them akin to what one feels for a special education kid. They try, and fail a lot, but you appreciate the merits of the attempt and recognize it for what it is.That being said, there is really one way to surmise this film is awful. I have survived viewing of BloodRayne and the un-MST3K'ed Manos: The Hands of Fate. I and my wife were riffing this ten minutes into the film.The only redeeming feature in this is the story, which was unique compared the usual fare (Hollywood could take a lesson here in looking for source material). However, everything else just fell flat...face first on to the concrete.The acting was bad, even for a B- film. The dialog was painful, the acting uninspired. I've seen more convincing effects in homemade animated films, and the editing looks like it was done by a six year old kid riddled with ADD.Honestly, only the most hardcore of Lovecraft fans will appreciate this. I respect his work, but I think he was rolling over in his grave when they wrapped on this pickle.

This film left me confused. The story's not bad in itself, reminded me a bit of Re-Animator, but that's not a bad thing at all. Also, the acting was better than I expected for most parts. Some of the characters behave really really odd though, especially the detective guy. That is THE most irrational cop (or character overall) I've ever seen in a film, and this time it's a bad thing. Most of the dialogs are pretty annoying, too: Most of the time you only see the face of one character filling the screen saying his line, then the next character filling the screen saying his line. It's surprising how rarely you actually see the two or more characters taking part in the dialog in one shot. That made the dialogs really stale and sometimes painful to watch. The overall editing wasn't too bad, with some exceptions where a cut left me totally clueless what's going on. I also got the feeling that some important things were left out. This movie's budget must have been incredibly small. The special FX that are used in the ending of the movie would have been a shame in the early 80s, now they're not even funny anymore. The rest of the effects (make-up effects) aren't bad. So the only scene where the effects are really awful is at the very end of the movie. One thing that was bad throughout the movie was the music: I mean, yeah, eerie is one quality music in a horror movie should have... sometimes. But the music should fit the movie, not just be eerie all the time, even when the "eerie" moment is long gone. The only exception here to eerie music is no music. Most sound effects sound out of place, too.This comment probably sounds worse than the movie actually is. It's not that bad and if you've got nothing better to do and nothing else to watch you might watch this, but if you're not used to low budget films you might have a tough time watching it to the end.

If you're into creepy horror flicks, then this film is certainly for you. I was very impressed with the production value; really top notch. The suspense and the acting are noteworthy. Ashley Laurence ("Hellraiser"), Thomas Calabro ("Melrose Place") and James Russo ("Donnie Brasco", "The Ninth Gate") all turn in stellar performances. It's really wonderful to see these actors in a fresh new vehicle as I have always been a big fan of their work. It was really awesome to see the original approach that was taken on an H.P. Lovecraft story, and to watch his brilliant characters such as Dr. Munoz and Mrs. Herrero come to life on screen -- with a few new twists and turns thrown in for good measure. Director Serge Rodnunsky is multi talented and cutting edge in his execution of this project.