Chiller is another made-for-TV horror movie directed by Wes Craven. It’s hard to believe Craven still had to work on the small screen after his smash hit Swamp Thing, but the world is often slow to recognize genius.
Chiller first showed up on CBS on May 22, 1985. People often say 1982 was the best year for films. Don’t sleep on 1985, though. That year also had a lot of great films. Plus, do you know what came out theatrically on May 22, 1985? The sublime A View To A Kill (plus Rambo 2 and Brewster’s Millions)!
Let’s see how Chiller stacks up to other made-for-TV horror movies like The Intruder Within, Midnight Offerings, Curse of the Black Widow, Satan’s Triangle, Killdozer, Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell , Invitation to Hell, Summer of Fear, Savages, Moon of the Wolf, The Initiation of Sarah, Crowhaven Farm, A Cold Night’s Death, Snowbeast and The Possessed.
Chiller
Chiller starts by defining “cryonics.” Basically, sick people who can’t be saved freeze themselves in the hope they can be thawed out when a future cure is developed. “So far, no human being has returned from frozen storage. Until tonight…”
Community Note: This is not true. Every girl I asked out in my formative years developed frigidity, only to be thawed out by the next guy who came along.
Chiller shows a lab packed with cryonic cylinders. It reinforces the notion that human popsicles are encased within by filling the room with dry ice. Nothing says cold in a movie like dry ice… except maybe blue tint.
At the mention of blue tint, somewhere, James Cameron became aesthetically erect…
A night watchman sits at a monitor bank and presses buttons with all the studiousness of a preschooler with a Fisher Price Cash Register. Chiller attempts to generate suspense by cutting between the watchman, a thawing cylinder and slasher POV. It does not work. The viewer grows bored as the scene drags on interminably.
Eventually, Michael Beck thaws out. Beck may have been genuinely frozen for this scene, judging by his career at this time. He essentially disappeared after Megaforce. He did appear in the second sequel to A Man Called Horse, but judging by how wooden everyone is in that, it stands to reason they were all frozen.
‘Cause This Is Chiller, Chiller Night
Cut to Beatrice Straight, the academic lady from Poltergeist, who plays Beck’s mom. She awakens Paul Sorvino. Beatrice wants Sorvino to come to the hospital. It’s a “miracle,” and miracles are Sorvino’s domain, as he plays a reverend. Beatrice tells Sorvino that Beck is back after ten years as a fish stick.
Chiller slams on the brakes again. An infinity of cuts between doctors, medical equipment and Beck being released from a tinfoil wrap follow. Being wrapped in tinfoil can’t be comfortable. It is the type of fetish that probably only the Wachowskis have explored.
And still the procedure continues. I don’t think Linda Hamilton took this long to install a giant artificial heart in King Kong Lives.
Meanwhile, Beatrice and Sorvino sit in the hospital chapel. Its altar looks like a Castle Grayskull playset. Who has the power? Not Chiller…unless it is the power to put us asleep…
Chillerator Filled With Ginger Ale
The movie reveals Beck has a sister. In a crazy coincidence I did not plan, the sister is played by Jill Schoelen, who we just watched in When a Stranger Calls Back.
At this point, Beck is fully thawed out, but he is not conscious yet. He is in a coma. Chiller wouldn’t want him to get too proactive too fast. Its got a ninety-minute runtime to fill and only fifty pages of a screenplay.
A nurse enters Beck’s room to give his arm an alcohol rub. Beck sleeps nude in an oxygen tent…possibly because he believes it “gives him sexual powers.”
(One thousand LMO points to the Outposter who names that reference…)
The alcohol rub causes air bladders to pulse all over Beck’s body. Did Rob Bottin do the makeup effects for Chiller? No, believe it or not, it was the great Stan Winston!
Phyllis Chiller
As I watch, I think, maybe Beck will turn out like that guy from Silent Rage. And another crazy coincidence happens: Brian Libby literally shows up in the next scene as a nameless orderly! Is the entire world a simulation that I am dreaming?
Regardless, Beatrice takes Beck home. So far, Beck hasn’t had to do anything for 130 minutes but lie in bed and sit in a wheelchair. Easiest role since Johnny Got His Gun!
Beck’s family is rich. They live in a mansion with servants and a groundskeeper. The groundkeeper has good news for Beck. His dog is still alive. The dog doesn’t want anything to do with Beck, however. It growls as Beck holds out his hand.
That night, Beck shivers in bed. He can’t get warm since being thawed. Meanwhile, his dog enters the house, growling the whole way. The ADR guy earned his paycheck on this scene. The dog enters Beck’s bedroom and attacks his quilt. Surprise! Beck is not in bed. He attacks the dog from behind, and we cut to Schoelen the next morning.
Schoelen is sad because she can’t find the dog. The groundskeeper tells Schoelen the dog is dead. Some animal got to him. Looks like we got a Deathdream situation developing, folks. An outside chance at a Dead Alive problem exists, as well.
The Big Chiller
Beck returns to his family business. The scene opens with a businessman sexually harassing a secretary. She files a lawsuit, and the rest of Chiller is about her becoming the new owner of the company. Just kidding. This is 1985. No one cares.
Beck hosts a staff meeting. Dick O’Neil (every TV show ever) was in charge during Beck’s absence. He reports a respectable six-percent return rate. Beck thinks they can do better if they stop wasting money on donations to churches and contributions to burn centers. He wants to DOGE things up and eliminate all waste.
Beck fires O’Neil. O’Neil follows Beck into the stairwell and begs for mercy. Beck goads O’Neil into following him up the stairs until the man has a heart attack. This is similar to the training regimen employed by my high school basketball coach. Other people got trophies at the end-of-season awards banquet. I got a stent.
Next, Beck invites his marketing manager out for drinks. She is played by Laura Johnson (Falcon Crest). Beck has a new position for her. He wants her to be his whore. Johnson is indignant at first, but the position comes with good pay, stock options, a company car and a nicer office.
“You win,” she says.
“That’s what it’s all about,” Beck answers.
Johnson holds out her hand and says the relationship doesn’t have to be cold-blooded. Beck takes her hand, crushes it and says, “That’s how I like it, baby…”
Okay, he doesn’t say, baby, but that addition gives the line more misogyny. People like misogyny. They can point it out and feel like heroes of their miniscule universes. Hey, everybody, look at me! I cancelled a forty-year-old movie! World saved!
The Chiller Factor
We are in the final 330 minutes of Chiller. Sorvino reappears. His church grew used to an annual donation from Beck’s company. He wants to know why it got cancelled. This enthralling plotline leads to Sorvino sharing deep thoughts with an old lady who serves no other purpose than to be a sounding board for deep thoughts.
J.D. Feigelson wrote Chiller. Feigelson is no stranger to the made-for-TV horror movie. He was also a writer on the well-regarded Dark Night of the Scarecrow. Feigelson has episodes of the 1980s Twilight Zone to his credits, as well. This makes sense. Watching Chiller makes one realize it would work better as a segment for an anthology show rather than as a movie.
But where were we? Oh yeah, Sorvino’s deep thoughts with an old lady…
“When a man dies, what happens to his soul? Suppose a man died and suppose he was buried for ten years and after that time was reanimated. If the body and mind function, he would be alive. But what about the soul? Would the soul rejoin the body? Or would it remain on the other side?”
The old lady hopes said soul would return. Otherwise, you’d have a monster. Or this…
All this eventually leads to Beck running Sorvino over with a car. Sorvino is made of adamantium, however, so he lives to tell Beatrice that her son is a monster. Beatrice disagrees. To her credit, she is open to changing her mind when Beck tries to rape his sister.
Wind Chiller
The climax consists of Beck chasing Beatrice around their mansion with a gaffer hook. Gaffer hooks are used to pull fish out of the water. You know where Beck gets the gaffer hook? It is hanging above the fireplace.
Ah, yes, many is the fireplace that has a gaffer hook hung above it…
Beatrice lures Beck into her walk-in freezer, traps him inside and freezes him. Tragic irony or poetic justice? Neither! Beck was playing possum. He attacks a policeman, and Beatrice shoots Beck dead with the officer’s handgun. Tragic irony or poetic justice? Neither! Beck was playing possum again. But only for a moment. He finally dies for good.
Chiller ends with a revisit to the cryonics lab. Warning lights go on as the entire facility malfunctions. It contains upwards of nine cylinders. That means we could have upwards of nine soulless Becks running companies that only care about the bottom line and murdering whistleblowers. So, yeah…situation normal, I guess…
Chiller Out
Chiller was one of the weaker made-for-TV horror movies in this series. Despite being directed by Craven and having a solid cast, it never generated any real momentum. Watching it certainly chilled me out to the point of a near coma. At least I know I retained my soul, though. How do I know? Because watching Chiller crushed my spirit…
