Fantastic Fest Report: Frostbite (Frostbiten) Review

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Vampires run amok in the polar night, terrorizing teens and townspeople alike in Frostbite, a delightfully bent party picture from Sweden.

The filmmakers obey a few genre rules and ignore the rest. Their 'pick and choose' method may irritate purists, but Frostbite barrels along at such a rollicking pace that the fun becomes infectious. For me, the knowing nods to smashed conventions only added to the enjoyment of an entertaining romp that features talking dogs and plenty of blood splatter.

After a wartime prologue in which a group of German soldiers pick the wrong cabin to spend the night, we're introduced to teenage Saga (Grete Havneskold) and her mother Annika (Petra Nielsen), driving into a snow-bound rural town to start a new life. Saga is none too happy to be leaving behind her friends, especially when she's reminded that her new home lies above the polar circle.

That means she'll attend school for months in the darkness, never seeing the sun. Nice.

As she walks into school, she's confronted by the tall, peppy goth girl Vega (Emma Åberg), who immediately decides she wants Saga to be her new best friend. Saga goes along with the idea, as much out of expediency as anything else, and so is invited to a big party.

Her mother likewise begins her day in the dark, in more ways than one. She's a doctor specializing in genetic research, and her great interest in the work of the noted Professor Beckert (Carl-Åke Eriksson) is what spurred her to apply for the position in the first place. Her happiness at meeting Professor Beckert is tempered when she sees things are not quite right with some of the patients.

Meanwhile, a teenage boy has disappeared and other bloody incidents begin disturbing the local populace.

The wintry settings are used to good effect by director Anders Banke and cinematographer Chris Maris. Once the vampires make their appearance, the combination of fangs, blood spurts, and puffs of frosty breath mix vividly. Of course, the lack of sunlight means you can't just wait them out until dawn, and also means their pale visages don't contrast so much with the clear white complexions of the Scandinavian youths.

The special effects make-up and CGI flow together very well, and the performances keeping hitting the right line tonally between comedy and drama. The jokes and pratfalls are set up to very good effect within each scene, thanks to the director and scriptwriter Daniel Ojanletva.

Special kudos are due for the dark, evocative musical score by Anthony Lledo, which benefits from its performance by a symphonic orchestra.

Production Manager/Line Producer Christian Hallman was on hand for the post-screening Q & A.

He acknowledged that the filmmakers wanted to "play around" with the genre. Filming took place over five weeks in weather that hovered at 30 below, and the crew joked that if they made a sequel, it would be set in the tropics and be called "Heatstroke."

Someone asked about the dialogue, which was peppered with snatches of English, obscenities, and hip-hop expressions, and Hallman said they strove to make the dialogue sound like how kids talk today in Sweden. The script struck everyone as funny when they read it -- how seriously can you take something with talking dogs? -- but during filming they took it very seriously, not really thinking about it as a comedy, and then during the editing process it became funny to them again.

The situation in Sweden is that independent financing is rarely if ever available, so only those few projects that win government grants get made. And even fewer of those have any kind of special effects (Hallman could only think of one other recent film, Storm). Therefore, Hallman said, imagine you're a special effects company in Sweden and there's never any work for you? So, when Frostbite got funded, many companies were only too happy to cut their rates so they could have the opportunity to work on the film. All this explains why the finished product looks much more expensive than what it actually cost.

Hallman said a single-disk DVD edition is now out in Sweden, but a more complete two-disk edition (with a number of deleted scenes) is due out at Christmastime. A Region 1 edition is due from Genius/Wellspring; the film also has distribution deals in the UK, Ireland, Spain, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, according to IndieWire (scroll down).

Don't miss visiting the official web site of Doctor Beckert.