The Thaw

The movie wasn't bad. I bought it after watching it for free somewhere else so I can say that it is at least a little bit enjoyable/interesting. My only big complaint is how unrealistic the insects were in the story line. Some people simply just "got it" and others exposed themselves over and over and over again and never got the bugs, which was just wholly unrealistic and kinda un-immerses you from the entire movie experience. All in all it was alright though.

Not bad and quite entertaining. Back in the 50's and 60's nukes were the culprits in many creature features today the alarmist's bell is ringing for climate change which is responsible for everything from acne to parasitic insects that infect and destroy. This is one of those. Val Kilmer, who is always good, plays a ecologist turned eco-terrorist and bugs are the vermin that are coming to destroy all life. If you are freaked-out by the creepy, crawlies then you will have a freaking good time. Very well done scenes of insect creepiness as they get under your skin and ultimately poke out of your eyes, nose and mouth after you are dead - very cool. The scene in which a guy gets his arm chopped off to avoid infection is particularly disturbing - and I mean that in a good way. Good movie.

It was actually good and not as bad as people made it sound. It’s simple, some climate change group comes across a fully intact mammoth corps and later find out inside its corps it’s got some prehistoric tics! And that’s where it gets nuts since they can hide under the skin

I was I have to admit a little doubtful at first about _The Thaw_. I knew it was a straight to DVD release and I worried that it would have bad acting, awful dialogue, or just otherwise low production values, perhaps like some of the other bad straight to DVD releases out there or some of the worst of the SyFy movies of the week (especially how they used to be a few years ago before they started improving in quality). The movie was a lot better than I thought it would be. In fact, I really liked it. Though the overall plot was not extraordinarily new it boasted one of my favorite go-to genre plots; the isolated Arctic/Antarctic research station having to contend with some horror that they can't get help (or help fast enough) from the outside world, a plotline used successfully in the _The Thing_, the _X-Files_ episode _Ice_ and in the mystery film _Whiteout_. This time though with a nod towards global warming has as its location a Canadian island in the high Arctic, a place that is shown largely snow and ice free, just open tundra with a nearly melted glacier. In fact, the movie has more than a nod towards global warming as it is a central theme of the movie. The opening montage shows news footage of global warming related disasters and talking heads on news shows arguing vociferously for or against global warming. I first feared that the film would be preachy (really, a preachy horror movie?) or that the horror would either outright gleefully mock climate change fears or embrace them wholeheartedly with a joy-killing earnestness. Thankfully, the movie did neither. The movie opened with a team lead by an environmental scientist played by Val Kilmer. Up there to study the effects of climate change on polar bears (they appear to have used a real polar bear in the filming, one in the wild as far as I could tell, impressive) they come across something. One of the native guides finds just barely covered in the ice of a melting glacier a thawing carcass of a very well preserved woolly mammoth, one so well preserved that the polar bear had been feeding on it. Early on there is something ominous though; the polar bear, which they had shot with a tranquiller gun so that they could study it, unexpectedly died off camera. This is a shock to the researchers. What is going on? No answers yet as we go to the United States to meet the rest of the cast, the chief scientist's estranged daughter and three graduate students , all of whom are to join the professor at his research camp (one of the students is played by Aaron Ashmore of _Smallville_ fame, a good actor and much appreciated). Taking them to the research station is a bush helicopter pilot, a good man and a strong character in this film. Cutting back to the research station, or rather, the field station camp near the mammoth find, things are clearly not well. The researchers are sick, possibly dying, and Val Kilmer's character, looks defeated, depressed and is obviously making some sort of video diary that has the feel of a last will and testament. He warns the helicopter pilot to not bring his daughter up there (though crucially, and deliberately, says nothing of the students). What is going on? I don't think I am giving too much away to say that the threat is some sort of insect-like creature, a parasite, one that had infested the woolly mammoth and now (presumably thanks to global warming) was free, active, and now making the research team sick. The insects are creepy, the effects they have on people chilling, and there was some really good tension and thrills regarding their threat (and key to the sub-genre of genre films, half the action is the growing paranoia, hysteria, and frustration of people in a very isolated part of the world, far from help, in a life or death situation against something truly unknown and deeply chilling, in a situation where the worst can come out in people and everyone fears everyone else). There however is more than meets the eye at first, truly muddying the waters and making any charge that this is a pro-environmentalist film a difficult one to make in my opinion. The cinematography is beautiful. I must confess I have not watched the making of special feature but clearly they were somewhere, not on a soundstage (except maybe while inside the station itself) and were somewhere doing great location shooting. If they weren't in the Canadian Arctic they found a good place to represent it. They also had real helicopters and the CGI was quite good. There was action but nothing I thought too unrealistic, nothing that I thought the characters wouldn't try or couldn't achieve given their backgrounds. All in all a surprisingly good movie. My only complaint was that Val Kilmer seemed little used and tired at first, almost not wanting to be there, an opinion I revised when I saw the entire film, that the amount of time he was used and how he acted very much fit his character's mental state and served the overall plot of the film well. There were some gross scenes but I have seen much, much worse and what was shown I think was necessary to advance the plot and show the very real risk faced by the students and others in the film.

I love "B" movies and giant critter or just icky critter movies, so I enjoyed this. True confession--I actually rented it cuz I have a celebrity crush on Kyle Schmid. Kinda bummed he played The Whiney Guy Who is Totally Gonna Die character. Anyway, there were enough creepy scenes that had me jumping and hiding my eyes (why do filmmakers have to include a shot of the needle going into someone?)As many have pointed out, the characters were touching infected items and getting goo and blood all over themselves without gloves or other protection, which is lazy story telling BUT given that this was probably made for about $2000, maybe rubber gloves were not in the budget. Plus it added to the gross factor. Also, many people complained about having global warming propaganda shoved down their throats. Yeah, this was totally a global warming is bad message movie. It WAS pretty preachy, but then, I do believe global warming is real and that man is mostly responsible for it. That's just me. If you are indifferent to the propaganda and just want a dumb, fun icky bug flick, this one fits the bill. And, you know, Kyle Schmid.

Watched the movie and thought it was great. Got me skeeved out over bugs even more then I was before. It also made me think of Global Warming even more. It's bad and just getting worse. It's so sad.

if your patient and make it through the {almost} first hour this film gets interesting and a little frightening. that is because of the script, the direction and the convincing actors. val kilmer is in this film, too. he could have called it in, but did not ruin the fright/fun. enjoy.

Love me some Val and Kyle, really...I do. It;s the only reason to finish this film. It had potential to be really scary, it just wasn't. I do not know why. Maybe I just never really cared about any of the characters enough to worry about them dying....or not. This movie spends a lot , I mean a lot, of time on nothing, then rushes thru the good stuff. this might be a good starter film if you want to introduce your kids to horror...sloooowwwwllly. Sorry boys, I would love to give you this one cuz you are both so awesome but, it really dragged.

Despite Kilmer's input....it did rely on the old 'bugs and insect scenario'.....which didn't really shock...or make one jump. It didn't even come close to The Thing, or its Prequel.....they really turned on the alien intruder thing on grand scale. This meandered with global weather change...a bear infested in the ice.....no spaceship....just an infection that was spread by bugs that had to be stopped. The actors were fine, but they didn't have much to work with....so it became more of a panic to see who would survive.

Good film pity no Blu-ray version

enjoyed, not a box office film, but ok

A1

This Canadian produced movie reminds me of an episode of the X-Files on a larger budget. It isn't bad, it's just been done before.Set on island in the far north, a polar bear has been munching on a slowly thawing (global warming is the big theme here) corpse of a wooly mammoth which has been infected by a very hungry beetle which in turn infects a scientific team (lead by Val Kilmer) with disastrous results. A group of students (who have been picked to work with the illustrious professor), the helicopter pilot, and his estranged daughter arrive to find the base empty. And one by one they get infected by the parasites.Will anyone survive? Will the parasites spread to the rest of the world? Frankly it's hard to care. Despite being quite competent on the technical and acting fronts and never boring it just isn't very interesting either. One for the charity shop I think.And just one final question. If this beetle is so dangerous to warm blooded life, how come it didn't infect the world thousands, if not millions, of years ago? If it can infect polar bears then it isn't restricted to one island and could never have been. And if even if it had, then how did the mammoth get there? The more I think about this, the more stupid the premise seems.