I came to watch this film via a roundabout process. Around twenty years ago, I lived in LA and went on a date with an attractive bartendress from a watering hole I frequented. She told me she’d acted in several horror films, including one of the “Creepshow” sequels, and a movie based on the H.P. Lovecraft short story “Cold Air.” That movie was “Chill.”

Recently, the film came up in my Amazon recommendations, and I realized I’d never seen it.

I will say, my erstwhile date was acting alongside some industry heavyweights. “Chill’s” star, Thomas Calabro, was very big in the 90s for his role in the TV show Melrose Place. James Russo is a career actor we’ve all seen in dozens of films. Ashley Laurence made her name in the “Hellraiser” movies.

Somehow, despite all that talent, “Chill” is the cinematic equivalent of flaming dog feces.

My first complaint: the awful editing. You know that feeling where you’re watching a movie and you’re thinking, “Wait – what’s happening? He’s attacking that guy in an alley with a crowbar? No, wait, now the other guy has the crowbar? And they’re somehow in a grocery store?” “Chill” is full of stuff like that.

Also, this had one of the worst soundtracks I’ve ever heard in a horror film. Just kind of maudlin spooky music that never seems to go anywhere. I’m pretty sure the director just grabbed some stuff from a “scary music” library and laid it over the final cut.

Another complaint I had, though this is probably not the film’s fault as I’ve noticed this with several Amazon movies: the dialogue was buried under the soundtrack and foley effects. I had to put closed captioning on (which augmented my sense of how bad the dialogue was. Seeing it in print was damning.)

The fundamental premise of the story, (mild spoiler alert) that of a guy who has to keep himself in cold temperatures and graft skin of various victims onto himself to stay alive—was pretty ghastly. Yet somehow, it was not scary in the hands of the movie’s creators.

There was some particularly awful CGI at the end.

My presumption is this. Upon completion of the film, the producers decided the best promotional effort would be to have the actors go on dates with random bozos, in the hope that said bozos would decide to watch the movie years later.

It worked, I guess.

Best line: “He hooked them … with a hook.”