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HUNTSVILLE, Utah (AP) -- Snowbasin is ready for its close-up.
The Huntsville ski resort plays a major -- if uncredited -- role in a new feature film titled "Frozen" that premieres Jan. 24 at Sundance Film Festival.
The horror film was shot in February and March at Snowbasin. It's about three college friends on a snowboarding trip who get stranded on a chair lift at night and have to contend with a pack of hungry wolves, freezing temperatures and other horrors.
Live wolves were brought from L.A. with a handler, and filming was done at night in below-zero temperatures.
The production company also brought in additional trees and built miniature and partial sets, including a foot-tall replica of the ski lift.
"It was quite an expensive effort," said Mickell Smith, Snowbasin's special events coordinator.
The film is rated R, in part for a scene involving the wolves.
Resort officials were glad to host the filmmakers but asked that it not be named in the movie for fear of negative associations with its unhappy ending. The script sets the story at a fictitious Vermont resort.
Snowbasin employees who helped with the shoot plan to attend a Sundance screening.
"A group of us are going to Sundance together. We can't wait to see it," Smith said.
Separately, Snowbasin will appear on the small screen with cameos in commercials for AT&T and Procter & Gamble scheduled to air during the Winter Olympics.
"We actually don't get film crews up here too often," Smith said. "We hope it may lead to future projects."
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Information from: Standard-Examiner
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
