Hypothermia (2010)

[akiratubo]

A man, his wife, his adult son, and his son's fiancee go on their annual ice-fishing trip.  The trip is interrupted by the arrival of another man and his adult son, who have a rather different philosophy of ice fishing.  It is then rather more seriously interrupted by a gill-man.

Hypothermia is exactly the kind of perfectly acceptable bad-movie I go looking for.  It's got a cast of highly professional character actors, is set in a great location, has a decent idea for a monster, and a few people I was expecting to survive get offed.  What more can you want?

You may wonder what I mean by a decent idea for a monster.  Well, the monster isn't malevolent as much as put upon.  It isn't actively harmful until it manages to get itself snagged on someone's fishhook.  You'd probably decide to munch some guts, too, if you were minding your own business and suddenly got a steel hook lodged in your soft palette.  The survivors are spared because the monster decides they don't mean it any further harm, at which point it simply goes back about its everyday existence like nothing had happened.  Not an original idea, to be sure, but it's not been quite done to death yet and it's reasonably well presented here.  I also like that the movie doesn't bother to explain what the monster is or where it came from.  All that matters is that it's here and our not-so-intrepid heroes aren't capable of dealing with it.  Well, they could if they'd just leave it the hell alone but I can't fault them for not realizing this given the circumstances.

So, decent idea.  Now, about that execution ... the monster is represented at times by CGI that looks like a skinny actor wearing a wet suit and a monster mask, and at times by an actual skinny actor wearing a wet suit and a monster mask.  Yeah.  The monster looks ridiculous.  The only time it doesn't is at the very end, which also happens to be the only prolonged look we get at it.  For this one scene, the monster appears to be live-action spruced up with some CGI.  The budget was obviously pretty darn low so I guess they decided to spend what little they had on the "money shot" and hope that quick edits and bad lighting could keep it from looking too silly for the rest of the movie.

However, anyone who might watch this movie is probably more than forgiving of silly monster suits.  Lord knows I am, so I enjoyed the heck out of this little movie.

[claws]

It gets bonus points for the silly rubber-ish monster suit, but they played it straight and serious. This combination worked better 20, 30 years ago but it won't fly these days I think. Unless its a homage of some sorts, but Hypothermia is not.
I really disliked all characters (even Michael Rooker's!) except Mom, and I really wanted to strangle the son and his girlfriend. What a boring, grinning couple.
I could deal with the borderline bad dialogue and acting, but the awful dull pacing at a running time of only 70 minutes sucked out most of the fun. They could have easily trimmed 10 minutes.
I was not surprised to read that Larry Fessenden was the producer. This movie had the same amateurish feel like Fessenden's own Wendigo (2001).
Not the worst I've seen, but certainly not good enough to be called a good movie. Just my opinion.

[indianasmith]

I kinda liked this one, actually.  The monster was sorta cool looking.

[BakuryuuTyranno]

Completely worth waiting around three years for

It gets bonus points for the silly rubber-ish monster suit, but they played it straight and serious. This combination worked better 20, 30 years ago but it won't fly these days I think.

It was onscreen less than three minutes.

Unless its a homage of some sorts, but Hypothermia is not.

"Creature from the Black Lagoon" was one of the films it was promoted as emulating.

but the awful dull pacing at a running time of only 70 minutes sucked out most of the fun.

Frankly, I would've enjoyed seeing more of these characters. Just not in a sequel, because horror sequels are almost always "hey let's add 90 minutes to the previous film's runtime".

I was not surprised to read that Larry Fessenden was the producer. This movie had the same amateurish feel like Fessenden's own Wendigo (2001).

I loved Wendigo - but, there isn't going to e a more polarising movie ever.

Not the worst I've seen, but certainly not good enough to be called a good movie. Just my opinion.

Just your opinion? But... a movie being good or bad is entirely opinion!