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Not much scares me in films these days. After years of abusing my nervous system with the horror genre I think I have become immune to being frightened on screen.
But when I was younger the films that scared me the most were vampire films. I remember pleading with my parents at a young age to let me watch one of Christopher Lee’s Dracula films (can’t remember which one specifically), and then pleading with them to turn it off before I’d seen enough to give me nightmares for weeks. I remember staring transfixed in horror as one of the Glick boys, emerged from the fog, scraping his fingernails on Mark’s window in Salem’s Lot begging to be let in.
And for these reasons I’ll always have respect for the silver screen vampire.
Ukraine, 1944 and a group of soldiers separated from their platoon and fighting for their lives escape into a forest. They come across what looks like an abandoned shelter deep in the forest, tired, cold and hungry they decide to hole up for the night. But something isn’t quite right, the stove is still hot, the doors and windows were blocked from outside, so how did the occupants of the wooden shack get out. The answer. They didn’t. Later in the night they are attacked by the vampire family that lay hidden in the cellar.
Fast forward to the present.
Mother (Annika – Petra Nielsen) and her 17 year old daughter (Saga – Greta Havneskold) are moving to Northern Sweden, arriving when the town is just starting it’s polar winter, no daylight for a whole month.
Things start well enough for the pair. Annika starts her new job at the local hospital and gets to work with a doctor she admires, Dr. Gerhard Beckert (Carl-Ake Eriksson), who you’ll soon recognise by the scar by his right eye is one of the soldiers at the beginning of the film. Dr. Beckert is a genetic scientist and only has one patient at the hospital, a young comatose girl who he feeds strange red pills to. Saga starts her new school, and is quickly befriended by sexy Goth girl Vega (Emma Aberg), who invites her to the local morgue to photograph the body of a recently deceased local boy and, a little more normal, a party to meet new friends.
In the local morgue a police officer is being shown strange puncture wounds on the neck of the young boys neck, not being fond of dissected bodies the policeman leaves the Doctor to complete a thorough autopsy. After overhearing the phone conversation between the Doctor and his wife, Dr. Beckert offers to conduct the autopsy for him, allowing him to go home to his wife. Dr. Beckert waiting for the other Doctor to leave, takes a stake and hammer from his medical jacket it and drives it into the young boys heart. The vampire is dead.
A young medical student (Sebastian – Jonas Karlstrom) enters the room with the comatose girl, on the table at her bedside is a small tin of the red pills Dr. Beckert is administering to her. After taking two of the pills, and hiding from the returning Beckert for the mislaid pills. Sebastian shows the drug to a friend and fellow medical student Lukas (Mans Nathanaelson) who jokes that the pills are the best trip ever, Sebastian pops the pill to Lukas’ complete shock who explains that that he was joking and has no idea what the pills are.
The pills have a bad effect on poor Sebastian. He has an uncontrollable thirst that water, milk, orange juice and ketchup cannot quench, all made him puke them back into the sink. After a visit from his girlfriend (Cornelia – Nour El-Refai) reminding him that he is having dinner with her parents tonight, also with Cornelia is Rufus her small dog that talks to Sebastian. Good shit these pills.
Returning to the hospital Sebastian breaks into Beckerts personal lab and finds a tin containing more of the psychedelic red pills. Meanwhile in the hospital Annika checks in on Dr. Beckerts only patient, shining a light into the girls eyes, the girl snaps to life and bites Annika on the arm. Bumping into Dr. Beckert outside the room she explains the situation, shocked by it and suspecting her of also stealing the pills from his lab he knocks poor Annika unconscious with his hammer.
Things go a little tits up for the town from this point on.
Sebastian’s lunch with the future in-laws doesn’t go quite to plan when he meets Cornelia’s parents who are very religious people with crucifixes on the walls. It doesn’t help when he tucks into the main course “garlic trout”, this doesn’t sit well with his new vampiric pallet so he gorges himself on the family rabbit. After excusing himself from the dinner party, he feeds on a pensioners poodle and is arrested by the police who can’t explain what the fuck is going on.
The red pills are taken by Vega from Sebastian’s apartment, who regularly supplies her with drugs he obtains from the hospital. The party starts off well with everybody having a good time, until the parties host (John – Niklas Gronberg) who had popped a pill earlier puts them in the punch. Soon he, and the increasing number of vampire party people are ripping the throats and limbs from the pussy teetotalers.
In the hospital Annika learns of Dr. Beckert’s past, the source of the vampires, his plans with the comatose teenager, her own future and that of mankind itself.
Will anyone survive the vampire attacks? After all. It’s only a month till dawn!
Frostbite is a wonderfully directed, gore soaked bloodbath of a vampire flick. Anders Banke shakes up the genres clichéd survive the vampires till dawn plot, by setting the film in a part of the world that experiences a polar winter. There is no dawn, the vampires attack relentlessly with no sunlight to come to the towns rescue. My only gripe was that the film never explores this plotline deep enough in it‘s runtime, with all the vampire action and attacks taking place in one night and the lack of dawn only implied. Although what happens after the conclusion of the film would make a cracking sequel.
The acting is excellent, although I always find it hard to find faults in the acting when watching a foreign language film. The script is lightly comic, which translates itself well when reading the subtitles. On the subject of the subs they are superb with no grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and are not too quick to vanish from the screen before you’ve had chance to read them.
The make-up effects are excellent and it’s mentioned in the “making of” that they where a considerable improvement of what had been achieved in Sweden in the past. There’s enough blood, severed limbs, guts and half chewed family pets on show to satisfy those who demand gore in their vampire films and films in general. I may shock you when I say that the CG on show is also of a high standard, the vampire creature that Dr. Beckert transforms into is a bit dodgy, but when I watched the “making of” it showed CG effects that I didn’t think were created digitally when watching the film.
The Region 2 DVD produced by Soda Pictures who I must say I’ve never heard of before. But they did a good job on a small foreign film that unfortunately not enough people are going to check out. As mentioned the subs are flawless and although the only “real” extra on the disc is the “making of” it is very informative.
Frostbite is brilliant entry into the vampire genre that’s only let down by the fact that it doesn’t make enough use of it’s originality.
