''Chill'' is a 2007 horror film written and directed by Serge Rodnunsky and starring

Thomas Calabro Thomas F. Calabro (born February 3, 1959) is an American actor and director. Biography Calabro graduated from Fordham University in New York City. Calabro began his acting career in theatre with various roles in New York. His first role was a ...

Ashley Laurence Ashley Laurence is an American actress and visual artist. She made her film debut in 1987 as the lead character, Kirsty Cotton, in Clive Barker's horror film ''Hellraiser'' (1987), a role she later reprised in '' Hellbound: Hellraiser II'' (1988 ...

, Shaun Kurtz, and

James Russo James Vincent Russo (born April 23, 1953) is an American film and television actor. He has appeared in over 150 films in three decades. Early life Russo was born in New York City, New York, to an Italian father and German mother. A graduate of t ...

Development and plot

The film was based on H. P. Lovecraft's "

Cool Air "Cool Air" is a short story by the American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in March 1926 and published in the March 1928 issue of '' Tales of Magic and Mystery''. Plot The narrator offers a story to explain why a "draught of co ...

". Similar plot elements include the fact that the doctor in the film (played by Shaun Kurtz) is named Dr. Muñoz as in Lovecraft's story, and must live in refrigerated conditions in order to survive. There is also a mention of the

Necronomicon The ', also referred to as the ''Book of the Dead'', or under a purported original Arabic title of ', is a fictional grimoire (textbook of magic) appearing in stories by the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first men ...

in the film; while this does not occur in Lovecraft's "Cool Air", it does serve in the movie as a clue to its Lovecraftian inspiration. Part of the plot hinges on the refrigeration system breaking down, again as in the Lovecraft story. Physically, the character of Dr Muñoz in the film does not resemble the character described in Lovecraft's story, nor does he speak with a Spanish accent. Overall, however, the plot of the movie moves away from the Lovecraft story in depicting Muñoz as the controller of a

serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

preying on prostitutes. Muñoz lives in the back of a deli which he runs, and the protagonist Sam (

), a writer who comes to work at the deli for survival money, gets dragged into the web of killings. Sam also falls in love with a woman named Maria (

) who runs a clothing stores across the street and is being threatened by a local cop, Detective Defazio (

), whom she dated once. The DVD packaging for the Australian release through Flashback Entertainment does not feature Lovecraft's name anywhere, though the American packaging indicates that Lovecraft's tale inspired the movie. The film is omitted from Charles P. Mitchell's otherwise fairly comprehensive ''The Complete H.P. Lovecraft Filmography'' (Greenwood Press, 2001), possibly because the makers of ''Chill'' did not overtly capitalise on Lovecraft's name. The ''

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Descended from the ''Pittsburgh Gazette'', established in 1786 as the first newspaper published west of the Alle ...

'' summarizes the plot as "Let's just say someone dies but cheats Death by harvesting flesh and dabbling in the occult."

Cast

as Sam *

as Maria * Shaun Kurtz as Dr. Munoz *

as Detective Defazio * Victor Grant as Tre * Clark Moore as Tor * Barbara Gruen as Mrs. Herrero * Adam Vincent as Steven

Reception

The film won Best Achievement in Fantasy and Horror at the Worldfest International Film Festival, was nominated for Best Horror Feature Film at the Shockerfest International Film Festival, and was an Official Selection at both the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and World Horror Convention in Toronto. DVD Verdict gave the film a reasonably complimentary review, while ''Home Theater Info'' is definitely praiseful of the film asking readers of the review to "give this movie a chance and enjoy." ''Slasherpool.com'' described a number of positives (the casting and directing) and negatives (the pacing and atmosphere).AnthroFred,
Review of ''Chill''
," ''Slasherpool.com''.

References

External links

* * * * {{Rotten Tomatoes 2007 films 2000s supernatural horror films American supernatural horror films Films based on works by H. P. Lovecraft 2000s English-language films 2000s American films English-language horror films