“Die you green bag of snot!”

Justin’s rating: I will never have a beard as majestic as Dan Haggerty — or a voice as sonorous

Justin’s review: As all good zombie movies do, The Chilling begins with an educational text scroll extolling the virtues of cryogenic preservation of dead folks like Walt Disney. You must understand that this was before we could fact-check anything on the internet, so why not believe in a frozen Walt waiting to return?

I cannot recall the last time I heard anyone talking — serious or otherwise — about cryogenic storage of corpses for possible revival, so I assume that it was a thing people thought was possible back in the late ’80s but has since fallen out of fashion. But boy is it the main topic of this film, which creatively postulates that these dead bodies don’t really appreciate having their organs removed and sold on the black market and decide to come back as cheesed-off semi-frozen undead.

Among these zombiepops is Joe, an angry bank robber who gets shot during a hold-up and frozen by his dad (their family really, really believes in cryogenics for some reason). He pops back to (un)life, thanks to a lightning strike when the bodies are brought outside during a storm after a power outage. Maybe the security team was itching for any excuse to use the forklifts, I don’t know, but it’s one of the dumber things that happen in this movie — and that’s saying something.

Linda Blair, who never was able to escape the horror circuit after The Exorcist, got attached to this undead dud and thus became its main selling point. And “dud” might be too mild and kind of a term, because The Chilling is one of those movies where most of the people act and talk as if they’re aliens stuffed into human suits and are on Day Two of their infiltration mission.

Blair plays Mary, the oblivious secretary at the cryogenics lab who’s got sixteen pounds of Aquanet in her hair and a strong suspicion that her agent isn’t giving her the best roles. When the “cryonoids” start shambling around and eating everyone with a body temperature over zero Kelvin, she partners up with the bearded security guard (Dan Haggerty, Elves) to save the day.

If you’re saving all your hope that the zombie outbreak will overcome a mountain of bad acting and random subplots, you best spend that hope elsewhere, because these undead are guys in green masks and goo shambling around. Plus, this is one of those flicks where the budget was so low that most of the action takes place at night in a darkened facility so they don’t have to show too much.

Trust me, no matter how low or lax your expectations, The Chilling will underwhelm you. It’s not a good movie and not fun enough of a bad movie to make up in the entertainment factor. This was an idea best left on ice.

Intermission!

• Walt Disney, Teddy Roosevelt, and Howard Hughes are all supposedly frozen
• “We ask you, would God approve or is this Satan’s work?” what
• Cryo tube labels: C Chaplin, W Disney, M Jackson (before his death!), T Roosevelt
• People were worked up enough against cryogenics to protest? Seems like a lame thing to protest.
• It’s a heart burrito!
• He knows how to spell “mine!”
• Seems like an extreme reaction to slit someone’s throat just because he’s being a little passive aggressive
• The pumpkin got it!
• I think that bank teller just got shot in the bum
• “Up yours, rent-a-cop!”
• This movie spared every expense with its blood squibs
• This guy’s wife just died and he’s trying to hit on the secretary the next day
• RANDOM DRUNK GUY FLASHBACK
• “I feel very concerned for you,” said the guy in a lifeless monotone
• Dan Haggerty will never button the top three buttons of his shirt
• Name-dropping Freddy Krueger
• “It might just be the best thing for me” said the rich guy about the prospect of pizza
• Did that radio guy just cancel Halloween for everyone?
• This cryogenics place has the worst power backup
• Yes, let’s check the computer AFTER a power outage
• I like how the lightning keeps tagging every individual cryotube, one after the other, like it’s popping bubble wrap
• 42 minutes in, and we finally get zombies! And they’re pretty lame!
• When someone vomits, yell at them “STOP IT! You’re making me sick!”
• The drunk guy throwing an empty bottle into a trick-r-treater’s bag
• This may be the first zombie movie I’ve seen where a zombie lugs around a dead guy to hide his body
• Zombies really don’t like getting impaled on a forklift
• Why do we need a flashback AT THE END
• And then a “where are they now?” slide show