The Thaw

2009 "Extinction will find you."
5.2| 1h34m| R| en| More Info
Released: 30 August 2009 Released
Producted By: Téléfilm Canada
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
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At a remote Arctic research station, four ecology students discover the real horror of global warming is not the melting ice, but what's frozen within it. A prehistoric parasite is released from the carcass of a Woolly Mammoth upon the unsuspecting students who are forced to quarantine and make necessary sacrifices, or risk infecting the rest of the world.

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Director

Mark A. Lewis

Production Companies

Téléfilm Canada

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The Thaw Audience Reviews

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.
Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
Páiric O'Corráin The Thaw: Another SF/Horror film set in the Arctic which owes a debt to The Thing. This time its the look and feel of the base rather than the creature involved. Arctic areas are thawing due to Global Warming, Dr Krupien (Val Kilmer) discovers a mammoth corpse being chewed on by a polar bear. But both mammoth and bear are now infected by a burrowing vertebrate parasite which lays eggs in humans.The doctors team are infected and more students who arrive are in jeopardy. Good, had me itching all over. 6/10.
Jason Voorhees This movie has fallen into the same pitfall so many other potentially good horror movies have fallen into. A lack of characters you could careless about. Its hard to care about the plot nor the message being sent if all you want to do it get to the end of the movie asap.Watching idiots making brainless selfish choices maybe realistic but its not what I go to watch for horror movie entertainment. If you want realism you already have it, why pay to see this crap.Its sad to see talent like Val being wasted on this trash, thank god for digital movies for now we can fast forward and skip and whatever else. Real waste of effort making the movie, real waste of time watching it. Dawg gone awful! Although the bugs eating the polar bear was good for a giggle.
Paul Andrews The Thaw is set in remote Canadian Artic wilderness on Banks Island where global warming ecologist & activist Dr. David Kruipen (Val Kilmer) & his team discover a prehistoric frozen Woolly Mammoth which has started to thaw due to global warming, inside the Mammoth are hundreds of eggs belonging to a extinct species of insect like parasite creatures that lay eggs inside living host's that are then then eaten alive from the inside when they hatch. Members of the team become infected & Kruipen tries to prevent his daughter Evelyn (Martha MacIsaac) from reaching the base but she refuses to listen to him & along with some research students arrive at the research camp to find it deserted, soon they too become infected & once the realisation of what the insects may mean if they get back to civilisation the survivors try to find a way to destroy them before the entire world becomes infected & millions suffer a horrible death...This American & Canadian co-production was written & directed by Mark A. Lewis & is a fairly effective take on the often used 'various character's trapped in a remote location that are menaced by some sort of horrific threat (aliens, zombies, killers, mutated animals or parasitic bugs like here)' sub-genre that was much better than I had expected. When I was about halfway through The Thaw I kept thinking about how similar the premise & especially the location & general story is to the classic The Thing (1982) with the main exception the script substitutes an alien creature for parasitic bugs which is fine but generally speaking The Thaw obviously owes a lot to The Thing. The script is fairly tight & has a decent pace, it builds-up quite nicely although there's not much of an ending which might have been more to do with a lack of budget rather than a lack of ambition. The character's are alright but apart from Evelyn we learn very little about them other than what they do for a living or are students, having said that The Thaw is a better film for not being bogged down in dull teen talk that plague horror films. Lasting 90 minutes The Thaw has a few nice scenes & is perfectly watchable without ever really excelling at any point, you could do a lot worse.The script also has a prominent environmental message with Dr. Kruipen's misguided plan (in an obvious twist ending that makes little sense) to wipe out mankind & save the planet from destruction, it gets a little heavy handed at times & it's nothing no-one out there doesn't already know & I doubt The Thaw will change the way people think about global warming or other such issues although at least it tries. There's a bit of gore here, there's a nicely handled amputation as a guy has his arm cut off with a meat cleaver, there are various scenes of people with sores & half eaten flesh as well as the bugs do what they do best & eat people. It's unusual to say but the special effects in The Thaw are surprisingly good although not too large in scale, the CGI computer animated bugs look fine as do the on set make-up effects & fake blood.Filmed in British Columbia in Canada this had nice production values & actually looks like a proper film, while Lewis isn't the greatest of director's as he fails to inject much tension or outright horror into The Thaw at least there's no shaky hand-held camcorder photography & no machine gun editing so I have to give him lots of credit for that if nothing else. The acting is alright, although Val Kilmer gets near top billing he's only in it for about ten minutes & looks bored.The Thaw is fairly unoriginal & feels like a slightly tweaked rip-off of The Thing but it's perfectly watchable all the same, it was certainly a lot better than I have anticipated. For those who remember it The Thaw is also strikingly similar to the season one X-Files episode Ice (1993).
xzane-86 I enjoyed this movie I can see why others didn't as movies with religious or global warming reference's sometimes get unfair low ranting., I will say if you believe in global warming or not please put your views aside while you watch this movie and enjoy the fiction of it.I would have given this movie higher marks if the main lead girl was a better actor.What I liked about this movie is that everyone acted differently when faced with this prehistoric bug.I don't live giving long reviews so watch the movie and make up your own mind.