HYPOTHERMIA Available on DVD October 2nd

It is the dead of winter. There is a secluded lake, frozen by the harsh temperatures, cold and uninviting. There on the ice is veteran actor Michael Rooker who apparently hadn’t yet been told that his one-handed redneck character on “Walking Dead” would return for season 3 and that all would be ok. He obviously thinks he needs the money. Beneath the ice lives something horrible. A menacing creature that is lurking, waiting to slither its way into your nightmares. This nameless creature is the dreaded “Man in A Monster Suit”!!

While the filmmakers behind “Hypothermia” might have had noble intent with aspirations to make a modern day “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” they fall flat on their face. There is no monster hunting down our hapless characters, there is only a Man in a Monster Suit. Disbelief could not find the line far away enough to be suspended properly. Instead of embracing the awful creature and making something that pokes fun at itself, things move along as if some suspense has been created. It never happens and the end result is a product that belongs next to “Sharktopus Part 4” on the SyFy channel.

The lake in question is located in Montana and has been the destination for an annual retreat for the Pelletier family for years. Ray (Rooker) is an avid ice fisherman and son David (credited in IMDB as Benjamin Hugh Abel Forster. Maybe he thinks he gets paid by the syllable?) and wife Helen (Blanche Baker who played Molly Ringwald’s older sister in “Sixteen Candles”) join him on the ice to watch the line sit motionless in the water.

Their day is ruined when big city loud mouth Steve (Don Wood) arrives blaring music and drilling huge holes in the surface of the lake. Steve has brought is son, Stevie (Greg Finley) and this arrival allows for more 2 dimensional characters to be ripped apart by our Man in a Monster Suit. The sun goes down. People die. In fact, despite the fact that “Hypothermia” is defined as “a condition in which core temperature drops below the required temperature for normal metabolism and body functions” the movie really focuses on everyone getting ripped apart. Misnomer.

This film was completed in 2010 and is just now seeing the light of day on DVD/Blu-ray. There was some hope here as the producers went on to cobble together “Stakeland” and “The Innkeepers,” both much better than this drivel. Seek those movies out instead. With a running time of 70 minutes, “Hypothermia” still plays too long and padded. Good poster art though. There, one thing positive.