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DVD Below Zero
 Rating: 4.5 Genres: Thriller Director: Justin Thomas Ostensen Writers: Signe Olynyk Stars: Edward Furlong, Michael Berryman, Kristin Booth |
| Storyline Based on true events, BELOW ZERO is a thriller with a ‘Fargo’ feel. It is the story of ‘Jack the Hack’, a less than average, but once successful screenwriter who now faces writer’s block. Desperate to meet a career-saving deadline and lock out the distractions of his troubled life, Jack arranges to be left alone and locked inside a meat cooler, with only vegetarian meals and his imagination to inspire him. As the temperature drops, the lines between reality and fiction blur, and Jack’s script comes dangerously to life. Will he make the most important deadline of his career? Or is Jack ‘just a hack’? While writing the script, the actual screenwriter and producer of BELOW ZERO, Signe Olynyk, arranged to have herself physically locked in the meat freezer of an abandoned, remote slaughterhouse. That’s partly how this story developed. It was filmed at the same location. Written by Anonymous |
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| Details: Country: Canada Release Date: 2012 (Canada) |
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| Box Office Budget: $1,200,000 (estimated) |
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DVD Below Zero
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Sounded like a great idea; a guy with writer's block decides, with his agent's blessing, to get locked into a slaughterhouse, so that he will have no distractions while he completes the script for a horror movie; forget it, this doesn't work at any level. Edward Furlong is fine as the writer, but the story is ridiculous and the format annoying beyond belief. At the start, Furlong is in truck being driven by a woman who is doing a dead on impression of the Frances McDormand's character from Fargo. This is not anywhere near that great Coen brother masterpiece. The movie flashes back and forth between Furlong typing on his laptop and a bald bad guy who looks like he has been in the sun too long, cutting up people with an axe and a hacksaw. The writer puts himself and a woman trapped by the unnamed villain. There is also a little boy who never speaks. The whole thing makes no sense, and the ending is dumb. Do not waste your valuable time on this tedious film.
BELOW ZERO is a thinking person's mystery horror. A scriptwriter, Jack the Hack, has writer's block and arranges to be locked in a slaughterhouse freezer until he comes up with a script. Believe it or not, scriptwriter Signe Olynyk tells me she also did this when writing the movie. On screen, the story is dramatised for us as Jack writes, so we have two on-screen narratives: Jack's world (think, Fargo) and that of the alter ego in his story (think Saw). As he considers various re-writes, the story within a story changes. But a third story is at hand: that from Jack's own psyche. His basic plot, surprise surprise, is someone accidentally being locked in a freezer, in a building owned by a serial killer. But, if you can stand back from the subsequent on screen gore, there's maybe time to work out what's really happening! This Kaufmanesque horror story keeps you on your toes all the way through. Signe doesn't recommend new writers try the freezer trick at home, but she does run a scriptwriters' workshop, Pitchfest (www.pitchfest.com), and invites any budding writers reading this to get in touch with her.
The basic premise of the movie is that of a horror story writer seeking some inspiration for writing his latest story, by going to a rural farm where he'll have some peace and quiet, and a prearranged eerie atmosphere given that he'll stay inside the farm's slaughterhouse. As he'll soon find out, he got more than he bargained for. Nothing too original about the storyline, but it's always a good starting point for a horror movie.
The problem was that the story didn't develop in a coherent way and many of the subsequent twists and turns in the plot seemed both trivial and unnecessary. There was no real moment of horror nor was there any eerie atmosphere throughout the movie. Many horror movies get away with bad scripts thanks to good directing, where a build-up of atmosphere and the occasional horror moment draw you into the story and make you forget about any plot holes or incoherence.
The problem here was that there was no real atmosphere. Partly, this was due to bad character casting. Miss "piggy laugh" was way too young and ordinary-looking for her role as some redneck farm lady, and the main character seemed more like a bored heavy metal-loving teenager than a professional horror writer fighting his inner daemons. Even so, the director could have saved the day with some "camera magic", adding a few extra flashback moments here and there and backing up the dialogs with fitting background music, just to get some atmosphere going. That's what separates good directors from bad, good directors don't just follow the script as a textbook manual and leave it up to the actors to make or break the movie, especially not when it's plain obvious that the main actors are unable to carry out their parts properly.
A slow burning thriller. When I found out that this film was written by a writer (Signe Olynyk) who suffered from writer's block and locked herself inside a freezer for 5 days I was instantly drawn in by her commitment to break through her dry spell. This film isn't autobiographical but it does hold some elements of truth to it. Namely the writer Jack (Edward Furlong) locks himself inside a freezer to free himself from writer's block while hoping to come up with a screenplay. Once the film kicks into gear as a member of the audience I had to ask myself why a guy would lock himself in a freezer without a proper toilet to crap in? The second thing I wondered is what Jack would do to his agent once he got out of the freezer. Would he sue his agent? The film deals with none of this. Want to learn about 'hacks' see this; What this film does deal with is what a screenwriter must visually see when the plot out a story. This is done by showing characters and events in the writer's life then being twisted and turned in his story and presented to us. The film has a very nice twist ending that will please the audience by taking them for a ride. Below Zero has snappy dialogue and excellent performances by Edward Furlong, Kristen Booth, and Michael Berryman. This is Edward Furlong's best movie in years. The main thrills come from the parts of the film in Jack's mind that give us nail biting suspense and brutality. It's a low budget slow burner for anyone who is more inclined to a well written dramatic piece instead of action packed horror film. Watch out for writer Signe Olynyk, she is a talent for the future.