Frozen Scream

Academic scientists Lil Stanhope and Sven Johnsson are researching the secrets of immortality. Their project involves turning their subjects into zombies and storing them in walk-in freezers. Their collaborator, Tom Girard, refuses further participation and is killed in his house by men in hooded robes who inject him with a serum. Ann, Tom's wife, arrives before the intruders can carry away his body. Ann is hospitalized following what Lil calls "the incident in the hallway." She attempts to convince Ann that most of it was all in her head, although Ann insists she was drugged by the intruders and left unconscious. Lil says that the police found Tom's body but no evidence of hooded men or hypodermic needles. Detective Kevin McGuire is assigned to the case, which he believes is connected to the disappearance of medical students Kirk Richard and Bob Russell. Kevin wants to interview Ann—sometime in the past, she had dumped him and married Tom the following day—but Lil prevents it. Sven suggests discharging Ann and appointing Cathrin as her home nurse. Cathrin is a zombie. Tom had told Ann of the immortality project, and they had attended a ceremony on a beach on Halloween. Tom left to confess to Father O'Brien while Ann watched the students chanting "love and immortality" around a bonfire. At their lab, Lil tells Sven that they are "interfering with nature" and that "the beings we create are not human beings." Sven assures her that they will soon unlock the secrets of immortality. Meanwhile, Kevin tells Ann of his suspicions about Sven and Lil. Ann agrees to report back what she finds. Kevin and Ann interview Father O'Brien. He tells them that Tom had said Sven was using curare on rats, then reviving them and keeping them at low temperatures to retard their aging process. But after being revived, Tom said, the rats acted as if they were "almost soulless." Shortly thereafter, a zombie strangles O'Brien. Ann gets a phone call from Tom, who complains of feeling cold and numb. The call ends abruptly when intruders burst into Ann's house. She calls Kevin for help and rushes to Cathrin's room. But Cathrin is not there. Instead, a zombie grabs Ann and threatens to kill her and Tom if she continues to cooperate with Kevin. Cathrin returns and denies that anyone was in the house. Not believing her, Kevin takes Ann home, where they sleep together. Kevin declares his love for her; she says nothing about her feelings toward him. Ann searches Lil's office and discovers photos of the missing med students. She tells Kevin she will search Sven's home lab during his Halloween party. During the party, Cathrin overheats and drops dead. The party continues. Ann sees Tom staring blankly from the window of an old house. She calls Kevin. She finds a freezer inside the house containing Tom and the missing students, both zombies—the zombies attack. Kevin kills one but is knocked over by a car and taken to the hospital. The second zombie chases Ann. Just as he is about to kill Ann, Lil appears and tells him that he has been out of the freezer too long. He immediately dies. Ann is taken to Sven's lab, where he intends to zombify her, but Lil kills him. Lil asks Ann to take Sven's place on the immortality project. As a ruse, Ann agrees but then destroys the lab. An angry Lil decides to inject Ann with the zombie serum. O'Brien, himself a zombie, arrives. Ann, Lil, and O'Brien visit Kevin in the hospital. Ann, now a zombie, promises that she will love Kevin forever. But her eternal love has a price, which Kevin pays as Lil plunges a hypodermic zombie serum into his eye.