Nice effects though.

Good concept, poorly executed.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Stiff film that's confusing at times. Thora Birch portrays a college drop-out with an IQ of 145 who drops out to become a prostitute.She meets up with an ugly older man who she will kill after getting him to sign everything over to her. The film deals with her continuous suspicion of her boyfriend, the latter helping her in disposing of the body. She uses two names which is never fully explained and has an assortment of hoodlum like guys on the side.Keith Carradine portrays the older detective on the case. At the beginning he announces that he will not retire as he wouldn't know what to do with himself. By the middle of the film, without explanation, he talks that this will be his last case as he is retiring. With a poor script like this, he shouldn't have ventured into this production to begin with.Actress Thora Birch displays a cold veneer as the sadistic killer. By the way, why did she really use 2 names?

Thora Birch made a vivid impression with her talent, her carefully flat affect and her poetic appearance in "American Beauty". Now, in "Winter of Frozen Dreams", all three qualities are back on display. Her ghostly complexion haunts the film, in which she is the centerpiece femme fatale.The film, set in a small town in mid-winter, has an unusually strong sense of colour and a very successful handling of visuals overall. Both the anti-heroine and the landscape from which she emerges are carefully pictured and scorchingly cold.Keith Carradine wins out with dialogue, as the jaded detective about to retire. His character follows the trail of Thora Birch with one wry remark, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, after another.As a portrait of a brilliant psychopath, the film kept me rooted to the spot as I studied Birch's careful depiction.

This is not a major film by any means. It is a good, well made & acted minor thriller, that deserved a better release & treatment from the critics & distributors.It only played in one theatre for only one week this past April.With some decent advertising & proper promotion it would have done much better.The story is based on a real life murder case in Madison Wisconsin the 1970', & it does have the feel to it. Thora Burch is the main character & she proves to be quite good in a hard to do role. Newcomer Brendon Sexton 111 is fine as the young man involved. Veteran star Keith Carrqdine is the chief police investigator & as usual he delivers.There are no car chases or explosion, next to no nudity or bad language.It is not a film for children & that is the only reason for its R rating. At times its a wee bit hard to follow, but stay with it, as It fast moving.Rent this, I am sure you will agree with me.Ratings: *** (out of 4) 86 points (out of 100) IMDb 8 (out of 10)

This thoroughly mediocre movie was a lot less fun than I thought it would be, and it left me with a bad aftertaste. Telling the unbelievable but apparently true story of a Black Widow/Lolita (Thora Birch) who seduces men, then murders them for their insurance money, it played like a bush-league rip-off of "Fargo." "Winter of Frozen Dreams" is memorable, if at all, for Keith Carradine's eccentric detective, a cross between Columbo and McCloud, and for Thora Birch's performance. The former child star and indie princess of such films as "American Beauty" and "Ghost World" has blossomed into a woman of devastating beauty, sensuality, and intelligence, and she dominated every frame she was in. Her character, Barbara Hoffmann, still languishes in prison serving a life sentence for murder. She supposedly had an IQ of 145--genius level--but you couldn't tell from this movie. All the characters seemed pretty stupid, her included. The film left some doubt as to her guilt. Was the aging detective just looking to make one spectacular bust before riding off into the sunset? That was just one of many questions this provocative but ultimately unsatisfying film left unanswered.