The Thaw
Sony
R4 DVD
The
Thaw is a different sort of horror or thriller, it is based on an ecological
threat and takes curret fears about climate change
and moulds them into an intriguing plot. While it shows its influences from a
range of classic sci-fi and horror films including John Carpenter’s The Thing,
Bugs and The Last Winter it creates a unique enough tale to make it quite an
impressive work of cinema in its own right.
Dr. David Kruipen
(Val Kilmer) and his team discover a woolly mammoth thawing in the Canadian
Arctic. To their shock they also find an ancient parasite that has been
hibernating in the animal for thousands of years, soon it spreads to other
animals and then into the team. At first they are not sure how much at risk
they are but as they study the bugs they realize the deadly nature of the
parasite and the danger it poses. As team members die Kruipen
makes a terrible decision. He has been fighting for ecological causes all his
life and the pace of change is way too slow to save the planet, accordingly he
decides to infect himself so he can spread the infection to the outside world.
He hopes the panic engendered by the infection will bring about a modicum of
environmental awareness.
Soon
a helicopter flies in a group of students and Kruipen’s
daughter Evelyn to the camp. He has tried to keep Evelyn away from the camp but
she is stubborn and difficult, a bit like her father. They are a motley group
of students, not immediately likable. Atom is intelligent if not a little
ideologically extreme, Federico is a rather unlikable sort of “survive at all
costs” sort of guy with a phobia about bugs and Ling has little character and
hence we know she will die early. Bart, the helicopter pilot, is the tough guy.
Of
course the major focus is the bugs and they are pretty impressive. There are
lots of gory and gooy moments and if you have any
problems with small creepy things then don’t watch this film. Bugs crawling in
and out of people, bears covered in bugs, decomposing bodies, they are in
depicted in graphic detail.
The
plot is credible, the acting believable and the combination of excellent CGI
with good cinematography makes it visually impressive.
I
did feel there was somewhat of a mixed message in the plot. On one level it
condemns Dr. David Kruipen
for his willingness to use eco-terrorism as a means to communicate his message,
yet at the same time acknowledges that mankind does not seem to able or willing
to change. At times the environmental message is a little strident, but on a
whole it is a very makes this is different sort of thriller.
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