HYPOTHERMIA (2012) * ½

 

Michael Rooker stars as a sportsman who goes on vacation to a frozen pond to do a little ice fishing with his family.  Once there, he has to put up with an obnoxious father and son team who blare their music too loud and run their snowmobiles around.  When they are menaced by a monster that lurks just below the ice, they team up and try to capture it.

 

Hypothermia starts off as kind of like a low budget winterized version of Tremors, minus the laughs and fun.  It’s OK when the characters have to be wary of their movements on the ice (the monster can sense their vibrations), but the stuff with the victims having a psychic link to the monster doesn’t really work.  The red and orange POV shots of the monsters get on your nerves pretty quick too. 

 

It also doesn’t help that the filmmakers endlessly tease the appearance of the monster.  When we finally see it, it’s a helluva of a letdown.  While I like the idea of using a man in a cheesy rubber suit, it runs across the grain of the serious tone the filmmakers had already established.  Had this been a Troma film, the monster would’ve looked right at home.  Seriously, I’ve seen Larry Buchanan movies with more convincing creatures. 

 

At least the gore is decent.  We get to see a gnarly chewed-up corpse and there’s a juicy throat-ripping scene too.  Luckily, the running time is only 72 minutes, so you don’t have to suffer through it for too long.

 

Rooker’s performance is the only legitimately good thing about Hypothermia.  He classes up the movie way more than it deserves.  Too bad no one else in the cast comes close to matching him.

 

AKA:  Hypothermia:  The Coldest Prey.