Hypothermia (2012)

You have to feel for Michael Rooker. He's a great actor, unfairly limited to the B-movie genre these days, passed over by the big name productions and stuck making what are, in effect, routine, low budget flicks. HYPOTHERMIA is such a production, a disappointingly cheap flick about an underwater monster. (At least Rooker's fortunes have started to change more recently, with a guest role in THE WALKING DEAD and an appearance in the blockbuster film GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. Perhaps people are starting to remember what a good actor he is.) Needless to say, Rooker is the best thing in this tale of a normal family who visit an iced-over lake to do some winter fishing. While there they encounter a couple of city slickers who have the potential to irritate, but before long everyone there is being menaced by a creature that comes out from under the ice. The creature is a guy in a suit that bears more than a passing resemblance to THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, only looking about a hundred times worse.HYPOTHERMIA is only just about acceptable as a film. The title bears no relation to the plot and the cinematography is too dark and dingy. There are some cheap gore effects and a few scenes of menace but none of it means much. You just wonder why the whole group don't just get out of there; their isolation is self-inflicted, making the whole thing faintly ridiculous. Still, a solid performance from Rooker is always worth watching.

Ray (Rooker) and Helen (Baker) have planned a day ice fishing with their son David (Forster) and his girlfriend Gina (Amy Chang) on a frozen lake. The family is interrupted by a loudmouth father Steve (Wood) and his son Stevie Jr. (Greg Finley) who make noise and scare the fish away. A confrontation is avoided when Ray accepts the invite for beers at their portable trailer that they have parked on the ice. Stevie Jr. is pulled into the water and is bit by a creature that no one sees. Ray and Helen urge the father to gets his son to a doctor but he refuses. The families soon realize they are up against a creature that is below the ice that is looking at them as prey. Writer/Director James Felix McKenney sets up this story well with Rooker as a good guy for once and then lets us down completely when the monster under the ice is revealed. The only way to describe the man in the wet suit with some fake looking teeth and googly eyes would be to say this is 1958 and this was all the filmmakers could come up with. The problem is its 2011, and all though no one wants to see another crappy CGI monster wrecking another movie, someone should have said 'no' when this was decided on. The movie manages to have some fun anyway benefiting from the decent set up, and one well timed jolt that comes when David is killed. Everything is taken seriously and then the stupid looking creature shows up and ruins everything.

Attempting to have a relaxing vacation ice-fishing on a remote lake, a man and his family get caught up in a fellow fisherman's quest to land the prehistoric monster terrorizing the lake after they get stranded with the creature and must find a way to survive the creature's attacks.There's not a lot to like about this one. One of the biggest faults here is the fact that there's just no screen-time for the main beast to be seen, as the majority of the film focuses on the not-so-interesting dynamic between his family that are used to roughing it without much in the use of outside equipment with the newer family having the state-of- the-art tools that soon grows into them believing that makes the newer family easily adaptable to survive the creature's attacks while his family comes to believe they should all leave once things start escalating in danger. While that's pretty chilling on paper, in execution it doesn't come off at all and really only serve to drag out an already quick film without doing anything with it. That said, the creature isn't much better, given one of the most basic, simplistic and barely disguised costumes around that doesn't even try to cover up it's a wetsuit with a fanged head, fins and webbed feet attached which really does look better than CGI since it interacts with the cast from time-to- time but beyond that it doesn't offer much. The film does do some right, as there's pretty chilling moments as this accurately gets the feeling of isolation amongst the cold and freezing temperatures right, several of the encounters with the creature is handled nicely including a night- time scene illuminated only by generator flood-lights and a harrowing chase over the ice as it races after the escaping group to get away from it before the cracking ice gives way and plunges them in. All in all, though, there wasn't much else to this one.Rated R: Graphic Language and Violence.

**** This may contain spoilers **** (though its pretty spoiled already by the acting, plot and effects)Not sure how this movie rated higher than a 1, but as a huge fan of "B" movies, I can honestly say this one ranks right up there as one of the worst I have ever seen (if not THE worst). When the creature finally appeared I wasn't sure if it was a joke or if it was serious. Unfortunately, it ended up being seriously presented as a monster. Its nothing more than a guy in a black swimsuit and a fish mask, with a big fake fin on the back. I saw better Halloween costumes this year on 6 year old kids. The acting was horrible, but I don't blame the actors so much as I do the script and the plot. The lines were often simply horrible. The whole "seeing a yellow aura" after being scratched made no sense. Were they trying to insinuate the person was being turned into something like the creature, or what? You never find out. And then somehow one of the people talk their way out of being killed to it? What? This movie dropped the ball in every possible way imaginable. The character reactions, the acting (except for Michael Rooker, who did the best he could with what crummy lines he had), the effects, all of it except the setting was HORRIBLE. Even for someone who loves cheesy "B" movies, this was just bad. So much potential behind the idea, but the execution was outright abominable. I can only surmise the positive reviews were all planted. I'd rather have a burning UTI than watch this movie again.