After serving as first assistant director on such projects as Erin Brockovich, Traffic, Solaris, The Good German, and Ocean’s Eleven-Thirteen, Gregory Jacobs was finally handed the directorial reigns by his mentor, Steven Soderbergh. The young filmmaker’s rookie effort, Criminal, opened to critical praise and, as such, he was allowed another opportunity to direct. Instead of staying with a sure-fire bet, that is, another crime thriller, Jacobs returned to his cinematic roots, i.e. horror, with Wind Chill. Having played the role of second-unit fiddle over 15 years before on Rachel Talalay’s Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, with the aide of the pen behind E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of a Vampire, Steven Katz, the director counters his previous experiences with horrific gratuity via understatement. However, by attempting the ever-tricky subgenre of psychological horror, Jacobs fails to come across as chilling so much as he does mundane.
When a catching young woman (Emily Blunt) opts to consult a college ride board in order to procure accommodations to her Delaware home over Christmas Break, she is met by a nervous individual (Ashton Holmes) in a dilapidated car. During their five-hour voyage, the former realizes that her host has a disturbing, yet genuine, crush on her. However, when her driver takes a shortcut, the duo find themselves stranded in the Maine wilderness amid a sub-zero snowstorm. As hope slowing gives away to desperation, they are met by a strange patrolman (Martin Donovan), who only appears when a certain song comes on the radio, as well as a group of priests and what appears to be frozen, yet animated, corpses.
In a genre fraught with gratuity, surface characterization and plot, and poor direction, when horror attempts to offer more than its standard fare, I’m all ears (and eyes). As such, one cannot fault Jacobs for not trying but, perhaps, trying too hard. In essence, the downfall of Wind Chill is that it attempts to fashion a story around a potentially horrifying, but nonetheless intriguing, philosophical premise but, in the process, it becomes too concerned with the idea and less with consideration as to its presentation.
Early in the feature, the unnamed male lead mentions the theory of the Eternal Recurrance, a concept devised by the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Having a philosophy degree, I sat upright upon the mention of the idea for, not only is it fascinating, but–as memory indeed failed to recall–such had yet to be addressed in a horror film. Jacobs makes sure to draw a solid line of demarcation between his feature and its thematically-similar predecessor, Harold Ramis’s Groundhog Day. Though the latter likewise deals with the notion of repetition, Ramis’s tale is staunchly rooted in Sisyphean-cum-Camusian daily redundancy whereas the former encompasses the grander motif of such in respect to eternity.
The correlation between the two aforementioned storylines is sadly highlighted by the fact that both films negate the logic of their premises for they introduce events which break the chain of events, thereby defying the prowess and weight of their ideas. However, such is the tragic burden of the narratives for both works have to follow dramatic convention because, if true to their contents, they would never–by definition–end. Nonetheless, this overlooks the fact that if such is indeed the unfortunate case, then perhaps this component of existentialism is not sound fodder for the medium.
Yet this is not the Achilles Heel of Wind Chill for the idea, however somber and thought-provoking, is not crafted in a manner so as to make us care nor does it spur the viewer into mental fisticuffs. Instead, its seems as if Katz equates substantive thought with boredom as we find ourselves (unlike Ramis’s film) ironically waiting for time to pass (an act which, in any of the arts and regardless of the theme, is never good). Moreover, much of the feature takes place inside a stationary vehicle and, as such, Dan Laustsen’s cinematography fails to succinctly capture the isolation and entrapment which our characters have found themselves. Instead, the haze which the script finds itself as the forced, trite dialogue vainly attempts to enshroud our two characters is sorrowfully complimented by equally obtuse photography.
Granted, the lack of identity which comes with the theory of eternity, especially in the wake of inevitable repetition, is well-posited. Furthermore, though bullied a times, Holmes does an admirable job (moreso than Cillian Murphy in Wes Craven’s Red Eye) of shifting his character from being friendly to creepy to sincere within under an hour. But, again, the little details of Wind Chill are frequently eschewed for the bigger idea which the former is intended to articulately convey via professional, convincing polish. For example, we watch as the girl, her foot propped upon the dashboard, paints her toenails with little difficulty. Having traveled up and down the East Coast, I can’t remember one, not one, road upon which this could take place. Equally disturbing in its blatant inconsistency is Blunt’s accent, which breaks free during the final fifteen minutes of the film as the actress is unable to successfully, persuasively emote while remaining in dialectic character. Lastly, what character–regardless of how naïve, arrogant, or overtly stupid–would even attempt to convince someone of their sincerity with the declaration that he or she enrolled in a philosophy course because it is an easy A? I suppose the ironic import of a doctorate in the field literally being a degree in the philosophy of Philosophy went unnoticed, not by the character, but the person who crafted her.
It seems as if Gregory Jacobs’s Wind Chill is searching for an audience and, at best, the theoretical demographic is the nonexistent one of an easily unnerved intellectual. Ironically, if such a viewer were to appear, the individual would inevitably walk away disappointed as Wind Chill’s underwritten script of big ideas demands a masterful artist to present them. Even Clint Mansell, former member of the industrial art band Pop Will Eat Itself and frequent composer to Darren Aronofsky, couldn’t redeem the work with another consistently exquisite score. In short, it is not as if Jacobs doesn’t house cinematic skill, but rather he takes on too much too early by attempting to breech Friedrich Nietzsche in only his second feature-length film. Even Nobel prize-winning novelist Thomas Mann wrestled over hundreds upon hundreds of pages in The Magic Mountain as he grappled with how to successfully cast the philosopher’s thoughts in a literary guise and, needless to say, the text wasn’t the writer’s sophomore effort . . . .
– Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
