Crew
Director – Robert Lee, Screenplay – Sarah Watson, Producers – Harvey Kahn & Robert Lee, Photography – Adam Sliwinski, Music – Annette Ducharme & John Webster, Visual Effects – Enigma Studios Inc. (Supervisor – Mark Rasmussen), Special Effects Supervisor – Tom Blacklock Sr., Production Design – Tony Devenyi. Production Company – MarVista Entertainment/Front Street Pictures/ThinkFilm.
Cast
Jeff Fahey (Dr David Kotzman), Erika Eleniak (Bryn), Bill Dow (Dr. Veet), Jessica Amlee (Sophie), Michael Ryan (Jeff), Britt Irwin (A.J. Carmichael), Fred Ewanuick (Phillip), Matthew Walker (Dr Hershel Gillespie), William MacDonald (Dempsy), John B. Lowe (Dr. Aldaron)
Plot
David Kotzman, a scientist with the environmental crisis company InterSCI, succeeds in creating absolute zero temperatures in a laboratory demonstration, although is concerned over the fact that his boss has invited military to the presentation. He is sent to Antarctica where scientists have discovered a cave uncovered by global warming that contains frozen cavemen. David returns to Miami with samples from the cave that he believes demonstrate that a drastic realignment of the Earth’s magnetic poles is about to occur. Almost immediately after, Miami is struck by a cold wave that reduces the environment to absolute zero temperatures.
Disaster Movies were a product of the 1970s, featuring vast human-made edifices on fire, crashing down, sinking and the like and usually with a name star cast in the midst trying to stay alive. In the 2000s, the Disaster Movie was taken over by the Syfy Channel and other outlets for usually a series of low-budget films featuring exotic menaces or combinations of menaces. (For a more detailed overview of the genre see my essay Disaster Movies).
As with many of these cable-made disaster movies, Absolute Zero reaches for exotic menace. In this case, it is premised around two things – absolute zero, the coldest theoretical temperature in the universe 0o Kelvin (which is equal to −273.15oC; −459.67oF). This is the point where particles reach a level of minimum possible motion above that which exists on a quantum level. There is a race among physicists to create temperatures that get as close to absolute zero as possible. The lowest recorded naturally occurring temperature on Earth has been 183.94oK in Vostok in 1983, while cosmic background radiation has been recorded as low as 2.73 oK and object Sedna, the outermost planetary body of the Solar System, reaches 12 oK. Just for comparison.
The other theory at play in Absolute Zero is that the Earth’s magnetic poles have shifted. There is some geological evidence that this has happened in the past, although most theories about such exist in the realm of pseudo-science. Such would have noticeable effects in terms of affecting weather, although the effects would be most noticeable in terms of killing GPS and cellphone reception and affecting migratory patterns of birds. Most of these effects are speculative, however a shift of the Earth’s magnetic poles would not create an ice age, nor plunge temperatures to absolute zero.
What we have in the film is a perfect example of Bad Science. First of all, a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles is not going to cause a new ice age. What the scriptwriter seems to imagine happening is a reversal of the Earth’s poles, which would be a far more catastrophic thing involving rearrangement of landmass and the oceans. Even if this were the case, the temperatures at Earth’s new poles would be cold but no different from Earth’s existing poles – the North Pole ranges between 223-273oK and the South Pole between 213-25oK. Even if the temperature would reach absolute zero, there is the small problem, which is that such would require all motion to be frozen solid with no latent energy. The energy from the Earth’s sun would quickly heat things up again, while there is still a good deal of geothermal energy, while currents of warm air and water would be brought in from the new equatorial regions. In other words, even if absolute zero was achieved, there is enough surrounding sources of heat that this would warm up in fairly quick course.
Although it was made early in the days of the cable disaster movie, Absolute Zero has all the hallmarks of the genre. This is most noticeable when it comes to the cheap and shabby looking visual effects used to represent the effects of the disaster. The film is cheaply and indifferently made. It has a couple of stars names – Jeff Fahey and former Playboy Playmate turned actress Erika Eleniak.
Despite the enormously catastrophic effects that the reversal of the Earth’s poles and temperatures plunging to absolute zero would entail, the drama is centred around dull and ordinary set-pieces – like trying to rescue asshole boss Bill Dow from an elevator; trying to traverse a frozen exterior ledge in a snowstorm; or fleeing along a corridor as a wave of ice instantly freezes people as it advances.
Robert Lee had previously worked as a second assistant director. He had made a variety of low-budget video action films, including the sf/action works Cyberjack (1995) and Dead Fire (1996), plus one previous disaster movie Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York (2006).
Trailer here