In Need of that Thing
Whilst researching polar bears in a remote area of Northern Canada, famed scientist Dr Kruipen (Val Kilmer) unearths the carcass of a woolly mammoth preserved in ice. It is why his reluctant daughter Evelyn and a small group of ecology students arrive at the research station to assist only to discover the place has been abandoned. As these students try to work out what is going on they start to turn on each other having become infected by a parasite which was unearthed with the Mammoth.
Well British Columbia looks quite an attractive place and the cast are also quite attractive as well as competent in their roles and also the special effects are not half bad. But when it comes down to it I know that a week on from now I will struggle to remember much about "The Thaw". It isn't that it is bad or tacky in fact director Mark A. Lewis has delivered a competent little creature feature but it is derivative and being only a competent, derivative movie does little to make anything about it memorable.
As such "The Thaw" doesn't need a great deal of explaining, some how this parasite has survived being stuck in ice for thousands of years and now it is infecting those which comes in to contact with and affecting them in many ways. I wish I could say there is much more to it than just that but in truth there isn't. In fact about the only thing other than the beauty of the location was that Val Kilmer manages to bring a touch of nefarious to his character as Dr. Kruipen, who seems willing to allow people to be victims of this parasite so that he can observes what it does to them.
What this all boils down to is that "The Thaw" is a solid, competently made horror movie but those two things don't make it memorable and so whilst it is not the worst way to spend 90 minutes on a quest evening you are not going to feel any burning desire to watch it again anytime soon.
