Point/ Counterpoint Review: Frozen Scream

Tonight on TOG'S critics battle we've got a real stinker, a torrential diaper that Mary Whitehouse and her army of Conservative chuckleheads deemed worthy for the Video Nasty List. We've invited Webberly Rattenkraft, the resident fact expert over at CREEPY KOFY MOVIE TIME, my favorite local California horror host program. Even though there's a big TV star in our midst, that doesn't mean punches will be pulled--fuck that shit! As you'll soon find out however, NO ONE in their right mind could honestly like this movie! It made me wish I entered the carbonite chamber and became frozen forever.

This is our third critics battle, a very special one, because this time it's mutant vs. rodent--two commentators enter the arena--no one wins!   

FROZEN SCREAM Directed By Frank Roach, Starring Renee Harmon (1975)

CRANKENSTEIN: The only movie where it's acceptable to start with a poem read over stock footage of the sea is Lady Terminator and this ain't it!

Sorry, I was busy working on my research paper for Anthropology

WEBBERLY: Oh, Lady Terminator. Where are your sultry terminating skills when we really need them? Nothing could improve this movie like having Lady Terminator stride into the room to terminate the shit out of everyone in sight, starting with the goddamn narrator. More about him in a bit.

Arghhh I'm Harry Reems' stunt cock!

CRANK: A googly eyed hunchback, fishes victims out of a pool carries them around on his back. All of these non sequiturs happen during the credits!

Hey, slow down director we've got an hour to kill!

Tom Girard a tan sweater wearing weenie keeps getting prank calls and goes to investigate, but he gets jumped by out of work porn actors in black cloaks! They inject him with mysterious needles. If the second half is as berserk as the first, we're in for a real blast!

TURN BACK NOW WHILE THERE'S STILL TIME!

WEBB:I have to admit, the black pointy hoodies lend a festive Ray Dennis Steckler air to the proceeding. This movie would be at least 66% better with the Lemon Grove Kids involved.

OW! my face, these Botox injections were just administered

CRANK: His wife Anne is down at the hospital and everything she says is over explained by Sergeant McGuire, a narrating detective. The audio sounds like it was recorded while they were running the film and gives it an extra bit of unintentional hilarity. 

WEBB: How bad is the sound recording? So bad that I'm still not convinced that the actor playing McGuire and the narrator claiming to be McGuire are the same person. Now, I can't prove that the actor was so traumatized by his experiences on set that he refused to come back and do the voice-over so they had to call in a sound-sort-of-alike, but does any other theory make any kind of sense? No. Therefore I am right.

HAHA Too late to turn back now!

CRANK: Lil Stanhope (any relation to Doug, the Beatle hating comedian)? Her bad accent sounds like Ariana Huffington doing the audio for a Charlie Brown holiday special.

When I went to film school they tried to brainwash me by saying don't over narrate everything that's happening on the screen, this clumsy movie breaks all the rules. Gradually you begin to realize nothing in this piece of shit makes any sense at all, abort, abort!!!

Audio collides into narration and stumbles into supreme awkwardness, if you find this irritating and not an advantage then don't watch this movie, you're gonna have a bad time!

WEBB: Most of the people in the movie read their lines they're like a casting agent prompting the seventy-fifth auditioner of the day, but not Lil Stanhope. No, she just sounds like she memorized her lines phonetically and has no idea what she's actually saying.

CRANK: This film should've been on the Audio Atrocities list not the Video Nasty one!

Sven the mad doctor sounds like he was dubbed by a guy that says "jive turkey" a lot, but sadly never does. One of the doctor's hooded goons splits a girls cranium with a hatchet (her eyelids move underneath the blood splatter).

 Down at the beach a cult chants "love and immortality" and we see a nipple pop out, don't expect more nudity cause you ain't getting any!

You think that's a nipple, but it's really a big hairy wart.

WEBB: I should probably confess that I really didn't pay close attention to FROZEN SCREAM, but that's hardly my fault. The thing is like attentional Teflon. You try to look at it, and your brain just slides right off, whoosh! I remember the jive turkey guy clearly, though, and wish the movie had been about him fighting drug dealers or ninjas or maybe ninja dealers. Maybe that wouldn't have been much better, but at least it wouldn't have been this movie.

 CRANK: The score is not all that bad--Hey there's a positive! Sometimes it sounds like the synthesizer is trying to recreate a car accident by going WARRRRRRRMMMMMMMMPPPPPHHHHHHH. It must be the same kind of instrument that Ferris Bueller had when he fooled everyone at school!

Abe Frohman, the Sausage King of Chicago is behind the frozen zombie plague 

WEBB: I bet Ferris Bueller was actually a frozen zombie. Remember his clammy palms? Classic sign. You shake hands with someone who's got clammy palms, odds are very good that he's a frozen zombie. Stab him, just in case.

CRANK: I cannot believe that director Frank Roach didn't return to the mental institute where he should've remained. He managed to escape in 1984 to film something called Nomad Riders! Renee Harmon (who played Lil Stanhope) went onto Van Nuys Blvd., The Executioner 2 (not the Duke Mitchell one, the Chris Mitchum one) and even showed up in something called Lady Street Fighter (with Liz Renay). All the other actors died of embarrassment or got jobs at the DMV. 

Not to be confused with Lady Terminator!

WEBB: Was it ever proved that Frank Roach wasn't just 10,000 cockroaches all crammed together in a people suit? Because that would explain a lot. I tried to get 60 Minutes interested in an expose, because if there are bugs running around trying to make movies the American people need to know about it, but the producer I met with wouldn't even get off the phone long enough to talk to me. He just kept screaming that a giant rat had broken into his house and would the police please hurry up. Hollywood types can be so rude. I was thinking of taking it to Jerry Springer, but that guy's house is like a fortress. What the hell is he so worried about?

Only a  gutless wimp would be afraid of a giant punk rodent

CRANK: Good Point Sir! and as for appearing on a trash talk show, I'm sure Maury would hook you up!
   I've heard that there's a worse VIDEO NASTY called Miss You Hugs and Kisses with Elke Sommer, I shudder at the thought of ever sitting down ludovico style in front of that monstrosity! On all the message boards, they talk about the "plot" like it's easy to figure out, we both agree that there is ZERO PLOT! According to Dailygrindhouse.com it defies analysis or understanding and they warn not to spend any money on a bootleg DVD or Video of it! 

WEBB: Did you know Elke Sommer was in THEY CAME TO ROB LAS VEGAS? That's the second time that movie has come up today, which usually means I should go watch it, except it's not on Netflix so I guess I'm outta luck. On the bright side, those few minutes I just spent researching it were minutes during which I wasn't thinking about FROZEN SCREAM at all. Gotta look at the positives.

It looks like they got Weng Weng's brother Steve Weng to appear

CRANK: I did have a blast watching it chatting on the Creepy Kofy Face Book page with a bunch of pals who watch the show every Sat., because it was a laugh riot. I highly recommend viewing it heavily medicated with friends who can appreciate bad movies, because this film lowered the bar to infinity.

Thanks Webb for joining me tonight on this debate and keeping the ravenous fans of your local horror host show satisfied while the show was on hiatus. 

WEBB: And in return I thank you for the platform from which to vent my movierage. I second the recommendation for movie medication, because without some kind of mental armor to cushion the blows, this movie will leave marks on your psyche, and nobody wants a psyche that's all scuffed and weeping.

Thanks again and next time bring some Cavegirls!