The Chill Factor — The Chill Factor( Blu Ray)
From 1993 The Chill Factor( aka Demon Possession) was the only directorial credit of Christopher Webster- who is most known as a producer, been behind films such as Hellraiser 1 & 2, Heathers, Meet The Appelgates, and Trapped Alive. The whole things scoped professional enough, though at times the films snowboarding footage does become a little overbearing- making one feel like their watching a snowboarding clips video.
The films centred around a group of smug, hair sprayed & upwardly mobile twenty-some things going out into the snowy wildness of the USA. The group decide to go for a race on a frozen lake known as Black friar lake, and during this one of them slams into a tree. They are too far from civilization to go back, so instead, they go hunting and find a seemingly twenty-plus year abandon cabin- that was the headquarters of a Christian children camp where some awful tragedy took place. Fairly soon the couples are paired off, making love over very mawkish keyboard music- as seemingly their fallen friends broken bones have mended. Then soon one-by-one the friends are stalked by a shadowy figure and killed in mostly off-screen murders- we get someone chopped up with a kitchen fan, someone self hung, and most impressively implied through the head by a huge icicle. Going on between this we have dodgy & cheap looking Ouija board action with this eye spin board, seriously corny & silly dialogue, and a very cheesy soap-opera-like old women narrator who pops up ever so often. As an effective and rewarding horror picture, this really isn't great, but as a campy and at times downright unintentional amusing 1990’s snowbound woodland straight to VHS chillier it’s not bad, and in a few very isolated spots there are some creepy atmosphere created when the shadowy monk appears.
New extra wise we have a commentary track from special effects artist Hank Carlson who worked on the film & horror writer Josh Hadley- this sees the pair offering a fairly chatty track- that sees them discussing the films snowbound Wisconsin location, members of crew who turned up in small cameos, the production company that was set up to producer this and other horror films in the late 80’s/90’s, effects set-up, on-screen action & script logic- all told an enjoyable track. After this we three stand-alone on-camera interviews these run between ten and fifteen minutes apiece- we get one with production manager Alexandra Reed, one with makeup artist Jeffery Lyle Segal, and one with stunt coordinator Gary Paul. We, of course, get original trailer & stills gallery
If you've enjoyed the recent selection of the late 80’s/ early 1990s fairly light & campy horror films that Arrow has put out like Scared Stiff, Elvira Mistress Of The Dark, and Doom Asylum- I think you’ll enjoy The Chill Factor- just don’t go into it expecting anything particularly scary or gory, and you’ll be ok.