• Wide Release
• Director: Grant Harvey
• Written by: Blaine Hart, Josh Miller, Barry Kloeble, Grant Harvey
• Running Time: 90 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: R - Restricted
• Cast: Tom Green, Crispin Glover, Sarain Boylan, David Lawrence, Mark Jenkins, Paul Spence, Peter Kent, Adrien Dorval, Scott Hylands, Brendan Meyer, David Brown, Jameson Trenholm, Donovan Workun, Marie Zydek

Any film that can bring together eccentric oddball Crispin Glover with contentious ‘moose-humper’ Tom Green has got to be at the very least interesting and, for what it’s worth, “Freezer Burn: The Invasion of Laxdale” is exactly that… interesting. With its pedigree in 50’s b-movies and in-jokey references to La Culture Canadian, Manitoba-born director Grant Harvey delivers a competent, goofy and ultimately exciting “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” retread, one that will surely have Harvey’s fellow compatriots in stitches. Viewers outside of Canada might not fare so well, as allusions to Don Cherry, puck-bunnies and characters fashioned in other obscure Canadian films, will surely leave non-Canucks out in the cold, so to speak.

Laxdale (a fictional farming town located somewhere in Canada) has been experiencing some strange things of late, namely an unusual heat wave that has pushed well into hockey season, leaving many in the area desperate for the first winter snowfall. As well, the town has become somewhat of a tourist attraction recently thanks to a high number of inexplicable crop circles popping up in their nearby cornfields. The locals are at a loss to explain events but that hasn’t stopped a few of them from attempting to profit from it. Thankfully, the remaining residents of Laxdale also have reason to celebrate, as a pair of Dutch Gazcon Oil Company executives (played by a lizard-like Crispin Glover and Peter Kent), have been inquiring about purchasing a local farming company and turning it into an oil refinery, assuring future jobs for everyone in town. Of course the mayor - the central architect of the deal - Al Lipinski (Dave Brown), finds himself slamming headlong into a brick wall when he is forced to deal with the obstinate Bill Swanson (Tom Green), a former hockey legend turned bitter, anti-social booze hound -- who simply won’t part with his land no matter how juicy the financial carrot Lipinski waves in front him. He’s a little guy against a big machine and following a council vote, Swanson, his trusty dog, Sparky, and his old camper, are getting re-located to the outskirts of town – out near the local dump.

Swanson’s problems only escalate when his former hockey coach and current best friend, Arnie Filmore (Scott Hylands), begins behaving… irrationally. In just a couple of days, Arnie has emptied his bank account, purchased all the air conditioners (and popsicles) in town and barricaded himself inside his quaint white-picket fenced home. Why? Well, that’s what Swanson wants to find out. Sadly, errant gunshot blasts are the only greeting Swanson receives when he heads out to visit Arnie at his out-of-the-way home  “Turn down the crazy,” Swanson pleads with his friend, who agrees but only if Swanson will promise to investigate ‘whatever it is?’ down at the local rink. Unsure of what to make of Arnie’s puzzling, paranoid request, the bitter Swanson elects to humour him and eventually tip-toes back inside the cold skating facility, something he promised he’d never do again after his burgeoning NHL career was unceremoniously cut short following a puck to the head. Inside the locker room he stumbles upon something that terrifies him to his very core – a dead, cow-hoofed alien stuffed in a locker, wearing a Gazcon uniform.

It is at this point in the film that Swanson morphs into a more dishevelled, hick version of Kevin McCarthy’s Miles J. Bennell character from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, as all of his attempts to warn the locals that those seminal gum-loving oil company executives are really malicious extraterrestrial aliens hell-bent on forcing all of mankind into forced servitude. The strange heat wave and multiple crop circles are only the first stage in their larger plan of transforming Earth into an intergalactic Club Med. Laxdale, it seems, is the testing ground for said grand experiment. Finding support in the strangest of places, it’s a new arrival in town working as a waitress at the local bar, Gina Larson (the beautiful Sarain Boylan), whom provides Swanson with the help (and the clues) needed to conclude that aliens are indeed among us and that he’s not losing his mind. Judging from the newspaper clippings detailing various alien/ufo incidents from around the world lining the walls of her small apartment it’s pretty clear that Gina isn’t just some drifter happening upon Laxdale on her way to somewhere else. Nope, she’s arrived in town with a purpose. For those Pinocchio-nose-rubbing aliens who abducted and molested her aboard one of their crafts, they’ve got one heck of a payback coming to them. Figuring out that the aliens react to the cold the same way the Wicked Witch reacts to water, Gina and Bill are quickly amassing an arsenal of cold shit; namely snowballs, popsicles and super-soakers filled with slushies, building towards their inevitable explosive face-off against the scaly-headed aliens. Eat your heart out David Icke!

A beaten and reluctant hero pep-talked into overcoming his fears allowing him to fire off the big game-winning slap shot to send the film out on a high note. Five bucks if you haven’t seen that formula done before. Director Harvey brilliantly satirizes well-worn sports-film cliché and immerses the surplus into a patently b-movie-ish sci-fi context, allowing for something at least part way different and interesting to emerge through the blackened charred haze. When was the last time you saw a sports movie merged with a sci-fi comedy? Never? Me neither. References to Canadian culture abound beginning with the inclusion of Paul Spence and David Lawrence playing veritable extensions of the dim-witted, heavy metal-loving characters they played in “F.U.B.A.R”, a cult film that most people outside of Canada won’t ever have heard of. Scott Hylands’ Arnie character is a more verbally abusive version of Canadian hockey icon Don Cherry right down to the ugly plaid suits he wears, and, like Cherry, his borderline racist locker room verve chats often leave you feeling even more confused than when you went into it. Also, the fact that Laxdale proudly touts, on the town’s welcoming billboard no less, ‘The Hometown of Hockey Legend Bill Swanson’, a guy who played in only a handful of games as a goon for the Ottawa Senators, speaks greatly to something so very Canadian. I also enjoyed the way Canadians are deemed subservient, an easy target, never questioning authority, even when said authority is clearly intending to screw them over. Cough! Stephen Harper! Cough!

My only beef with the film is that Harvey didn’t do more with Crispin Glover (2006’s “Simon Says”) whose work in the film is sporadic and wanting. He remains nearly dialogue free minus a couple of random grunts here and there. Crispin is one of those rare and unique talents who can take even the most mundane roles and turn them into something memorable. Not this time! Here it felt as though he was wasted in a very minor, underwritten role more befitting of a lesser-known actor. For sure, it would have been more interesting to see him and Tom Green (2008’s “Legacy”) swapping roles, although I’m not altogether unhappy with Green’s work in the film. In fact, I feel as though this film represents some of Tom Green's finest work to date. Far removed from the senseless moose-humping, cameo-mercenary Green we’ve come to know over the years, this is a performance that absolutely bleeds depth, maybe because Green himself either consciously or unconsciously incorporated his own personal feelings of career disappointment into the character. He's the straight man to everyone's crazy. A self-loathing, social discard, ashamed of the direction that his life has taken, second-guessing himself at every turn and burying his pain in a bottle, Green carefully sculpts the perfect reluctant hero. “The whole town thinks I’m a retard,” Swanson tells Gina late in the film. Either Tom Green is reading his own press or art is imitating life here?

Alongside multiple references to the Canadian social fabric, something that will appeal to the Great White Northerners in the audience, the film also manages to tap a larger audience by satirizing well-worn sports-film cliché and certain quirky genre points, namely the casting of two anti-Hollywood leads. For sure, if this finds an audience, it'll be those looking for the kind of quirky thrill that comes from teaming up Glover and Green, regardless of the country. That said, Grant Harvey (a guy who probably shits maple leafs and pisses Tim Hortons) really made this film for one group of folks -- Canadians! Every inch of this cinematic undertaking seems crafted with a Canadian back bacony flavour, namely by making the reluctant hero a former NHL tough guy, by staging it (a quandary with potentially universal consequences) in some rural Canadian prairie town (the kind with huge clouds filling the skyline at every turn) and referencing Canadian culture (including Northern music that isn't the Tragically Hip, thank god) at every turn, this is a film that will leave the Canuck crowd tap-dancing with glee.

 For more information on the film check out the imdb page. There's also an official site.