Writer-director
Adam Green grew up skiing in the Massachusetts area where the ski hills
were only open Friday through Sunday. He always wondered what he would
do if the chairlift stopped and he got stranded. It was that fear that
spawned the idea for Frozen, a thriller about three people
trapped in a chairlift fighting the cold, their fear, and the knowledge
that a pack of wolves is hungrily waiting for them on the ground below.
It was a simple enough premise, but Green didn't want to use a
soundstage or green screen.
"I think for a survivor film, if
the audience can even slightly justify it by saying, 'It's only a
movie,' it takes you out of it. Especially now with high-def and
Blu-ray people can really see all the imperfections," Green says.
Shooting on location proved to be more difficult and dangerous than expected though.
"The
hardest part [of filming] were the shots where the chair's moving and
the actors are speaking. The mountain [staff] said if we hang a camera
on the chair with three people in it it will fall, and if I shot the
whole movie from the chair in front of them we'd be really far away and
it would be really boring. We ended up strapping ourselves to the
actual lift cable in harnesses. When I showed the camera crew this they
all refused to go in it so I wound up harnessing myself in and shooting
all of those scenes myself...50ft in the air with my feet dangling with
a camera in my hands. I was absolutely terrified," he admits.
Kevin
Zegers was the first to be cast in Frozen as the alpha male character
Dan. He recommended his real-life friend Shawn Ashmore to play the role
of his best friend Joe. Green says the chemistry between them was out
in front because they've been friends since they were children, as with
the characters they play. As the female lead, Parker, Emma Bell beat
over a hundred other actresses but Green admits she was his first
choice all along.
"Emma was the first person to come to audition
for any of the roles and when she finished I looked at the casting
director and said, 'She's the one. Let's hire her.' [The casting
director] said you can't hire the first person to walk through the
door, you have to see the rest of these girls. Five more weeks, a
hundred different actresses, and Emma got the part. That might be a
Hollywood first."
Green has worked mainly in the horror genre which he enjoys because of the "instant gratification" you get from the audience.
"I made a movie called Spiral
a few years ago that was a drama. Watching that with a crowd was really
hard because you have no idea if people are into it or not until it's
over and you hear the applause and comments. With horror or comedy
you're constantly getting gasps or laughs, or clapping, cheering, and
screaming," he says.
Best known for his 2006 film Hatchet, which has reached cult status among horror audiences, Green enjoys the horror fanbase and embraces it.
"You've
never heard of a romantic comedy convention. Nobody cares about that,"
he says. "I appear at horror conventions all over the world and fans
line up for three hours just to get my autograph or to touch me...I
actually signed a baby! You can't get that from any other genre. Sci-fi
and horror fans take it so seriously, it inspires you to do better work
because you know that these kids believe in you. You're constantly
challenging yourself to do better."
Green also interacts with
his fans on MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter and feels it's important to
put himself out there and connect with the audience the same way Clerks filmmaker Kevin Smith does.
"I've
learned from watching him [Smith]. He's got such a personal connection
with his fans and you can't buy that. It's the best thing you could
ever hope for. No matter how busy I am I try to write back to everybody
who writes to me even if it's something short. I think that means a lot
to them to get a response," he says.
Speaking on the current
state of horror films Green is disgusted by the last decade which he
believes is the "lowest point the genre has ever hit." He blames the
influx of remakes (or "generation Xerox" as he refers to it as) and the
mainstreaming of torture films like Hostel and Saw.
"When
I got into horror it was because I liked monsters and villains and I
liked the fantasy of it all. Now all of a sudden I'm supposed to be
excited because a woman is strapped down and raped for 90 minutes or
some guy is stuck to a chair screaming in pain? That's not
cool...that's not fun," he says.
The problem he says is that the audience dictates what Hollywood produces. He praises more original work like Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell and the underrated film Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon but admits not many people supported those in the theatre and that's the problem.
"My
stance remains the same -- you can't blame Hollywood, you have to blame
the fans. Hollywood would make animated Holocaust comedies if people
wanted to pay to see them. They don't care, they just want your money
and statistically these remakes pull in all the money and these
original movies get nothing. It's sad. It would be nice if the fans
would realize that if you really don't like these remakes they should
pay to see something original and show there's a need for it. Paranormal Activity really blew people away with how well it did and hopefully that starts to change the game for original films," he states.
He just wrapped the shooting of Hatchet 2 which he refers to as, "The Dark Knight of low-budget slasher sequels."
When asked what he hopes people will get out of Frozen, he jokes, "I hope people walk out of it floored and blown away that someone could make a movie about three people in a chair."
"I
also hope that it becomes part of people's permanent psyche and the
next time you're on a chairlift and it stops you'll nudge the guy next
to you and say, 'Hey, remember that movie?' I hope people appreciate
the old-school method of how we did it practically. When you watch it
there is no doubt they are really there. Even in the close-ups the
actors are 50ft up freezing to death. I hope people respect that," he
says.
Frozen opens in select theatres on February 5. Read my review of the film here.
brian.mckechnie@citynews.rogers.com
Top image: A scene from Frozen. Courtesy Anchor Bay Entertainment.