There’s a lot to mock about The Thaw. It’s shot on some kind of cheap DV and framed Panavision–the cheap DV isn’t even consistent–and the cinematography is atrocious. It’s also a global warming horror film–indestructible bugs from earth’s past threaten our future unless we stop with the global warming business. Director Lewis misses the humorous part of having one of the global warming disbelievers–he does these radio show things and cuts in some TV interviews–get attacked by the bugs. It would be great. I guess he hasn’t seen Scanners.
I don’t know what colleges Val Kilmer’s kids attend, but they’ve got to be expensive–if he weren’t trying to pay for something so mundane, the tabloids would be all over it–there’s simply no reason for him to do a video like The Thaw. With a better script and producer–not to mention another thirty minutes on the running time–it could be all right. But it doesn’t have any of those things and Kilmer’s wasting his time here.
He doesn’t even get any good scenes with Martha MacIsaac and Aaron Ashmore, who give decent performances. Ashmore’s done this kind of role before and he’s solid, but MacIsaac’s a surprise. She doesn’t look at all like she could pull the character off, but does a fine job.
Kyle Schmid and Steph Song aren’t bad. Viv Leacock is terrible.
But The Thaw does make good use of Canada as a setting, not just a filming location.
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