THE THAW is an unashamed rip-off of THE THING, with the action shifted to Alaska rather than the Arctic and a prehistoric parasite rather than a shapeshifting alien as the menace. Other than that, it's business as usual, with a small cast whittled down by an unknown enemy and paranoia erupting all over the shop.Given that this is a low-budget B-movie starring a mostly unknown cast, I thought it was surprisingly enjoyable. The director and writer focus on the sense of impending menace and the creepy atmosphere for the most part, and it works well; some parts are genuinely unnerving. There are the inevitable gross-out and medical scenes, but these are handled well; the gore effects are limited but more effective as a result. Even the expected CGI isn't too shabby.The idea of a parasitical organism has been explored quite a lot in recent years - such as in the memorably creepy found-footage horror, THE BAY - and it's always one I find pretty disturbing, and that's no exception here. Add in a value-for-money Val Kilmer and you have a decent B-movie for a change.

In the near future, climate change (aka "global warming") causes parts of the Arctic to melt. Investigating the effects, environmentally conscious Val Kilmer (as David Kruipen) is startled to discover an intact woolly mammoth is thawing. Other creatures feed on the ancient carcass. A polar bear dies from the experience, and appears to be infected with parasites. "The Thaw" unleashes these creepy crawlers to fester under the skin of other animals, and lay their eggs. The creatures feed on the host body and look around for more. Human flesh is especially tasty. The squeamish should be on high alert...Before the horrifying danger is clear, four graduate students are selected to observe Mr. Kilmer's expedition...When his estranged daughter Martha Macisaac (as Evelyn "Evy" Kruipen) decides to go, the count is lowered to three. Joining her are attractive Aaron Ashmore (as Atom Galen), Kyle Schmid (as Federico "Feddy" Fulce) and Steph Song (as Ling Chen). The script should be clearer about how the first student becomes infected. Kilmer isn't on screen much, but helicopter pilot Viv Leacock (as Bart) is part of the group; he should have been included in the opening credits. It all adds up to a surprisingly effective thriller, written and directed Mark A. Lewis; he should be working more. The special and visual effects are excellent.******* The Thaw (8/30/09) Mark A. Lewis ~ Martha Macisaac, Aaron Ashmore, Kyle Schmid, Steph Song

Val Kilmer again plays an environmental scientist (as he did in The Chaos Experiment) this time doing research in Canada. Apparently the glaciers are melting quickly. A polar bear he and his crew are tracking is found lunching on the brains of the corpse of a mammoth no less, that is surfacing thanks to the thawing.Later his crew is getting sick and crazy. He is filming some type of a confessional.Meanwhile some students are sent to study with him and his daughter goes along for the ride- even though he begs her not to go. When the kids arrive, no one is at the base camp except for the body of the bear. The kids spend the night but problems surface. The helicopter pilot is bitten by something, and so is one of the students- all over her body. Suddenly one of Kilmer's colleagues appears but she is ends up dying in a few minutes.The kids realize that there is some prehistoric bug that is infecting everyone. It went from the mammoth's brain to the bear to the crew and now to some of them. And from here things get annoying as the daughter takes charge of sorts since the males are as usual completely useless romantics. All sorts of fights ensue. The kids find Kilmer's research and tapes and discover that the helicopter has been disabled by someone and have to call for help. But they have to survive until help arrives.Suddenly Kilmer shows up...but he has different plans than the kids. The ending is neat. And actually the ideas behind it of radical ecologists perpetuating eco-bio-terror is very interesting. The problem is the annoying teenies. Had this movie been cast with adults, it could have been a striking movie. Instead we get the usual teen team led by some girlie who's of course much tougher than the guys- so much so that when a guy can't hack someone's arm off she rushes to grab the meat cleaver. Hollywood's warped political/social agenda is undermining their own artistic work. When will this annoying fad be over? Overall, the movie is well done, has good special effects, somewhat of an original story that is pretty interesting, but is more interested in furthering grlpower than its own aims.

The Thaw is set in remote Canadian Artic wilderness on Banks Island where global warming ecologist & activist Dr. David Kruipen (Val Kilmer) & his team discover a prehistoric frozen Woolly Mammoth which has started to thaw due to global warming, inside the Mammoth are hundreds of eggs belonging to a extinct species of insect like parasite creatures that lay eggs inside living host's that are then then eaten alive from the inside when they hatch. Members of the team become infected & Kruipen tries to prevent his daughter Evelyn (Martha MacIsaac) from reaching the base but she refuses to listen to him & along with some research students arrive at the research camp to find it deserted, soon they too become infected & once the realisation of what the insects may mean if they get back to civilisation the survivors try to find a way to destroy them before the entire world becomes infected & millions suffer a horrible death...This American & Canadian co-production was written & directed by Mark A. Lewis & is a fairly effective take on the often used 'various character's trapped in a remote location that are menaced by some sort of horrific threat (aliens, zombies, killers, mutated animals or parasitic bugs like here)' sub-genre that was much better than I had expected. When I was about halfway through The Thaw I kept thinking about how similar the premise & especially the location & general story is to the classic The Thing (1982) with the main exception the script substitutes an alien creature for parasitic bugs which is fine but generally speaking The Thaw obviously owes a lot to The Thing. The script is fairly tight & has a decent pace, it builds-up quite nicely although there's not much of an ending which might have been more to do with a lack of budget rather than a lack of ambition. The character's are alright but apart from Evelyn we learn very little about them other than what they do for a living or are students, having said that The Thaw is a better film for not being bogged down in dull teen talk that plague horror films. Lasting 90 minutes The Thaw has a few nice scenes & is perfectly watchable without ever really excelling at any point, you could do a lot worse.The script also has a prominent environmental message with Dr. Kruipen's misguided plan (in an obvious twist ending that makes little sense) to wipe out mankind & save the planet from destruction, it gets a little heavy handed at times & it's nothing no-one out there doesn't already know & I doubt The Thaw will change the way people think about global warming or other such issues although at least it tries. There's a bit of gore here, there's a nicely handled amputation as a guy has his arm cut off with a meat cleaver, there are various scenes of people with sores & half eaten flesh as well as the bugs do what they do best & eat people. It's unusual to say but the special effects in The Thaw are surprisingly good although not too large in scale, the CGI computer animated bugs look fine as do the on set make-up effects & fake blood.Filmed in British Columbia in Canada this had nice production values & actually looks like a proper film, while Lewis isn't the greatest of director's as he fails to inject much tension or outright horror into The Thaw at least there's no shaky hand-held camcorder photography & no machine gun editing so I have to give him lots of credit for that if nothing else. The acting is alright, although Val Kilmer gets near top billing he's only in it for about ten minutes & looks bored.The Thaw is fairly unoriginal & feels like a slightly tweaked rip-off of The Thing but it's perfectly watchable all the same, it was certainly a lot better than I have anticipated. For those who remember it The Thaw is also strikingly similar to the season one X-Files episode Ice (1993).