Movie quotes:
Virgil: Oh! Hey! It’s a tiny wooden moose!
Blake: It gave me a whittle cramp.
Virgil: Oh! You got a whittle cwamp?
Blake: A whittling cramp, a whittling cramp, ‘cause I was – I was up all night whittling!
Virgil: Alright, I’ll see ya – later.
Rex: Fifteen years.
Virgil: Fifteen years.
Gary: Here are your fuckin’ French Fries.
Rex: They’re Freedom Fries, Gary.
Gary: Yeah, sure.
Rex: You’re letting the terrorists win!
Rex: I’ll give you the rundown. A few years back, terrorists attacked us, fucked shit up royal – so, now we’re back in Iraq, and we’re asking for help, and the Frenchies are like, ‘No!’. So we’re all, like, ‘Bye, French Fries; hello, Freedom Fries’.
Virgil: Sounds…stupid and convoluted.
Rex: Yeah, and we got Freedom Toast, Freedom Bread, Freedom Dip, Freedom Kissin’…it’s a different world now, Virg – welcome to it. Need some ketchup – Gary!
At a glance:
An entertaining concept and some enthusiastic acting make Freezer Burn’s tale of cryogenic love a low-budget sci-fi gem
Our review (with spoilers):
Virgil Stamp (Robert Harriell) is a scientist whose goal is to prolong the ability to freeze donor organs. Buoyed by his success with monkey hearts, he makes the jump to believing he can freeze an entire living thing. A terminally ill dog is his first test; when that succeeds, he looks for another subject. In the meantime, his devotion to his work has caused tension between him and his wife, Blake (C. C. Seymour). This isn’t helped when he takes a liking to the paintings of Emma (Ella Rae Peck), a comely 14 year old student of Blake. When Blake finds out that he purchased one of Emma’s paintings behind her back, she destroys his frozen specimens, ruining his upcoming presentation. With his funding and his marriage terminated, Virgil realizes his feelings for Emma are true love. To prove his theories are correct, and to set up a legal meeting between Emma and himself, he freezes himself, leaving instructions for his assistant Rex (Michael Consiglio) to thaw him out in fifteen years. He also leaves instructions for Mendelson (Ivo Velon), a dodgy criminal who owes him a favor, to keep track of Emma. Eleven years later, a failure to pay notice means Virgil climbs out of his freezer in the middle of a dump, homeless and in his underwear. He has no friends, no money, and no outer garments. He eventually finds Rex, who is now homeless, and Mendelson finds him. Mendelson’s news is that Emma died in a car crash, but as he tells his story, we see that in reality, Mendelson fell in love with Emma and married her (this plotline is a bit similar to There’s Something About Mary).
There are moments of amateurish writing and acting in Freezer Burn, but not many, and not nearly enough to reduce the enjoyment of the clever concept, entertaining story, enthusiastic acting, and the general ‘feel-good’ mood of the whole project. Robert Harriell is particularly good in a demanding role that requires he is on-screen almost all the time, often by himself. Some of the fall foliage location filming in Connecticut is also beautiful. I’m hoping to see more from writer/director Charles Hood.
Click here to order Freezer Burn on DVD
Other reviewers said:
"If you can look past the lack of polish, there are some very fun and entertaining bits in here."
- Curse of Greyface
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