In writer/director Adam Green's secretive new horror film FROZEN, the terror lead characters Lynch (Shawn Ashmore), Dan (Kevin Zegers) and Parker (Emma Bell) must face isn't the kind you can stop with bullets or a machete. Stuck mid-air on a ski lift with no help in site, these three friends are battling the unstoppable elements of mother nature.

Bloody-Disgusting recently spoke with Green, who remains tight-lipped on the project other than to say that the Utah shoot was one of the most grueling ever experienced for all cast and crew involved. Stars Shawn Ashmore and Emma Bell also spoke exclusively with BD to recount their experiences on set and tell us just how much torture the masochistic Green put his actors through to bring the proper level of believability to FROZEN.

"I think we all went in very well warned of what kind of movie we were going to be making and how we we're making it," Ashmore told Bloody-Disgusting. "The hardest thing for us at the beginning was getting used to the cold and also sitting up in the lift for six hour periods. Then we'd have half an hour off [for lunch] to warm up and stretch our legs and then another six hours before we wrapped. For me, the cold wasn't the biggest problem. I grew up in Canada, so I've always been around snow and they totally took care of us and dressed us warm. But the weight of the skiis and snowboards and boots hanging off the lift for six hours... We would come off the lift and our legs were completely asleep. I couldn't feel my feet any more."

"We literally got hit with four blizzards while we were shooting," adds Bell. "There are no green screens at all. If it looks like we're freezing, its because its 10 degrees outside and there are, like, 50 mile an hour winds."

During our interview with Green, the writer/director referred to the resilient Ashmore as his "hero." We asked Ashmore what he thought Green was referring to. "I'm not exactly sure," says Ashmore with a laugh. "There are a few stunts, a few harness situations. This is the only thing I can really think of. This was one of the things where I think he was impressed. First of all, we're out in the freezing fucking cold and we were up there forever. Everybody was troopers. There is a stunt situation and I had to put a rig on, like a harness, but the wires were showing through my costume. So they had to do this other type of rig which essentially gives you, like, a power wedgie in the most uncomfortable way. It basically takes your manhood and puts it in the smallest package possible. I had to wear that for about 12 hours. I was in extreme pain. And another thing, it was a size small and it was a female harness. That was the only thing they had. It hurt real bad, but we just kept going. Adam could tell I was in pain."

Emma Bell's Parker has some of the films most emotional moments, but the actress says that the elements of the on-location shooting helped her meet the demanding level required. "I was definitely in the kind of mood of the character... We'd be up on that lift and you can't really change the setting. So when we did the scene, we'd be up there for hours on end. To keep that kind of emotion and try to one-up yourself every take and make it better, was a very hard lesson to learn. I learned when to save it for the close-ups versus the wide shots. We'd be doing it for hours, so it would be pretty brutal."

Ashmore's character, Lynch, meets his friend Dan's girlfriend Parker for the very first time on their ski adventure. When the lift stops moving, the group will have more get-to-know-you time than they could have ever bargained for. "Lynch is Dan's best friend," says Ashmore. "He's a bit of a joker. He's the kind of guy that's got a real sense of humor and gets through life telling jokes and sort of deflecting real life. He's a nice guy and he's looking out for Dan. This is the first day where he meets and spends time with Dan's girlfriend Parker."

Sandwiched between the ski-high testosterone of Dan and Lynch, Parker must find her own inner strength to get through the horror of the situation. "She's going out with her boyfriend to meet his best friend and have a good time," says Bell. "She wants to kind of be one of the boys for the evening, but she's obviously a very girly-girl. At first, she can seem like she needs to be taken care of a bit, but as the story moves forward she really finds an inner strength and she pushes through and finds the strength in herself."

The role is the first lead part for Bell, but she succeeded in impressing her seasoned co-stars. "Its one thing to be up there with another guy that you know, but when a girl that you don't know completely break down, its pretty powerful," says Ashmore. "You've got to bring it all the time and that shit is intense. Its crying, screaming, panic. And above that, there's a level where these characters just sort of shut off and there's a despair and a disconnect from the situation. These characters really go through the whole gambit."

Much like the characters went through the hell of FROZEN's realistic scenario, the actors were often experiencing a fate not entirely dissimilar. "There's that complete isolation that's terrifying and the lack of communication," says Ashmore. "And also, just the sheer fact that heights are an issue with a lot of people. Sometimes you don't even know it until you're actually stuck. I mean, I'm fine on a lift, I've been doing it for years. But its way, way different when you're stopped at a high point and that bar comes up. All of the sudden, I'm the guy who thinks I'm totally cool and [now] I'm nervous and kind of get vertigo. It's like, ‘Wait a minute. I'm going to be up here for a whole month?' I could relate to that sense of dread."

Bell admits that, while her character is able to dig deep and discover a newfound strength within herself to face the situation, she's not so sure how'd she'd fair if faced with FROZEN's scenario in real life. "Man, I am, like, horrible in cold weather," says Bell. "I don't know how I would react. The situation these kids are put into is just so traumatic. You don't really know how to act in that situation. It's not like most people are schooled in survival. Basically, I would not survive, probably."

Filming in the remote ski resort of Aiden, Utah, did offer the advantage of plenty of bonding time for cast and crew. Luckily, they all got along well enough not to mind hanging out at night after the day's long shoot. "Aiden, Utah is beautiful little ski resort town, but its literally a four-way stop with a market, a cafe, a Mobile station and that's about it," says Bell.

"We became friends very quickly," says Ashmore. "It was a really small crew and only a handful of actors. So yeah, we spent time together all of the time. Every Saturday we would go to the same sushi restaurant and go to the same bar and play darts. We'd get together, we'd have dinner and [then] just rehearse and talk about the scenes coming up."

With the release of FROZEN nearly a year away, the exact details of the characters' struggle are still under wraps. From what we can gather, it will be character-driven horror as we follow the three leads through an unimaginable survival scenario. "Its not an attack, it's not somebody that's coming after you," Ashmore tells BD. "It's that slow burn, that thing that just kind of creeps up on you, that's really scary. Reading the script, it builds on you and, by the time you're done, it's one of the most helpless situations you could possibly be in."