A wealthy industrialist arranges for his body to be kept on ice in a high-tech cryonic chamber. When the instructions are not followed properly, he emerges from the frozen crypt as an empty, soulless creature with an appetite for destruction.
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Reviews
Slow pace in the most part of the movie.
Best movie of this year hands down!
Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Business man Miles Creighton, played by Michael Beck is cryonically, (not cryogenically - yes there's a difference), preserved for 10 years due to a medical transplant not being possible at the time of his death. One night his tube malfunctions and he is taken to hospital where his mother arranges for the procedure to be undertaken.The operation is a success and his mother is just happy to have her son back in her life and tries her best to continue life as normal and returns her son to the family company as CEO. To everyone else, Miles is just not normal and appears emotionally distant and ruthless with his decisions in the company and with people in general. The only one who dismisses this is his mother who brushes aside the nay-saying as simply a result of his long time in stasis and the impromptu revival. However it becomes clear that Miles has indeed changed and sparks the debate of whether a deceased person once revived is also revived with a soul. Miles becomes violent and sociopathic towards most people and only when he tries to kill the family priest by running him down with his car does the mother finally realise that what has been returned to her is not her loving son.Miles ends up being re-frozen in a large walk-in freezer and is then shot dead by his mother after he attacks a police officer revealing his demonic eyes to his mother just before he dies. The movie ends back at the cryonic facility with sirens sounding as more cryo-tubes start to malfunction.Chiller can be described as one of Wes Cravens' weaker efforts as this tries to go for a more atmospheric suspense over blood and gore. And as this was made for TV, the violence is quite low-key so even for 1985 it would be hard to consider this a horror movie and is instead more of a thriller. The quality of picture and sound is quite low, so in watching this you can be forgiven for thinking that this came out in the mid- seventies. Most of the cast performances in this are not the best but I felt that Michael Beck did a good job of portraying a soulless psycho where killing or hurting people isn't given a second thought. Chiller also came out at a time when cryonics was starting to regain interest in the early/mid eighties after the failures and legal scandals of the seventies, so the ethical, spiritual and moral implications were being discussed vigorously by religious, family and legal groups and whether cryonically frozen people should be brought back and this movie does briefly touch on that point. As yet a successful revival is still beyond the current technology levels so Chiller is pure fantasy and remains scientifically impossible. It's not the greatest movie by any means but if you manage to catch this on late night TV, then it's at least worth a look.
After his success with A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984, director Wes Craven for some reason decided that his next project would be this TV movie. I'm not a big fan of this director on the whole; early exploitation flick The Last House on the Left as well as his modern slasher Scream sit well with me, but the rest of his work is very hit and miss and I'd hesitate to call him the master that others have labelled him as. The main theme here is cryogenic freezing, although it's more a springboard for the plot rather than an important part of the movie. The main influence here is obviously the excellent 1974 zombie film Deathdream and we focus on Miles Creighton; a businessman cryogenically frozen for ten years before an accident that means he has to be thawed out immediately. Miles is a part of a project for people that are ill; they pay to be frozen in the hope that they will be revived in the future when their illnesses can cured. Miles is successfully revived and it's seen as a miracle...but the person that wakes up is not the person who was frozen, as Miles returns without a soul.This film could actually have been quite decent judging by the idea behind it, but instead we're given a plot that doesn't really have a lot to it and it has to be said that Craven doesn't make the best out of the potential of the film. The 'soul' is the main focal point, but it would seem that not having a soul and simply having a murderous intent/no compassion are the same thing, which feels a bit unimaginative. The film was made for television so it's not particularly nasty and it's obvious that not a lot of money was spent on it as the whole production feels very cheap. Michael Beck never became a very popular actor and that isn't surprising judging by his performance here; while he is passable, he largely lacks charisma and is not formidable in the central role. The plot doesn't flow too badly but there's a real lack of suspense and/or tension and things slow down too much too often, which results in the film being rather boring on occasion. It all boils down to a predictable ending also. Overall, I have to admit that I was not impressed at all by this film and as far as Craven's filmography goes, Chiller would have to go down with Shocker, the Scream sequels and The Hills Have Eyes II as a miss.
Corporate executive Miles Creighton (a superbly unnerving performance by Michael Beck) gets revived after being cryogenically frozen for ten years. He comes back as a cold, amoral, unfeeling automaton who's only concerned about satisfying his own urges. He proves to be a ruthlessly cut-throat businessman and even develops incestuous longings for his sweet, comely, frightened cousin Stacey (winningly played by the always pretty and perky Jill Schoelen). Director Wes Craven, working from an interesting and provocative script by J. D. Feigelson, does an expert job of creating and sustaining a creepy and unsettling atmosphere. The solid and credible acting from a fine cast constitutes as another substantial asset: Beatrice Straight as Miles' loving, but scared mother, Paul Sorvino as a concerned priest, Dick O'Neill as Miles' loyal business partner, Laura Johnson as an ambitious advertising executive, Anne Seymour as Sorvino's elderly friend Ms. Bunch, and Alan Fudge and Craig Richard Nelson as honest, dedicated surgeons.Stan Winston's excellent make-up f/x, Frank Thackery's slick cinematography, Dana Kaproff's spooky'n'shivery synthesizer score, and a pertinent central message about how being truly human requires having a soul are all up to speed as well. A genuinely eerie and on the money effective made-for-TV horror movie.
With this endeavour, director Wes Craven will not, in all probability, please many enthusiasts of his other films, the majority of which involve a good deal of violence and bloodletting, but he does a workmanlike job with this account of storage cryogeny which goes awry. Wealthy Marian Creighton (Bernice Straight) has kept her son Miles (Michael Beck) in cryogenic suspension for ten years since his death from a liver disease, and when a computer failure results in his sudden thawing, his mother decides upon immediate liver transplant surgery for him, a procedure not available at the time of his demise. Although this surgery is successful, and Miles resumes his former station as CEO of the family corporation, an issue arises as to how one might know of the possible lack of his spirit, or soul, whereas the other two elements of life, body and mind, have plainly been restored. The destructive behaviour of Miles is such that his mother and her clerical friend Reverend Penny (Paul Sorvino) begin to doubt that they should thank a higher power for delivering Marian's son to her, and a metaphysical inquiry becomes dominant in the film. Beatrice Straight gives, as ever, an excellent performance in her role, Paul Sorvino is tastefully nuanced as the troubled prelate, and Michael Beck obviously savours his part as the fulsome Miles, but Craven cannot seem to distance himself from his cinematic terror bromides, most of which become red herrings for a scenario which largely focusses upon ontology.