Defrost review: a VR mini-serie that will make you feel uncomfortable

Second episode of my column dedicated to VR storytelling content from VeeR. Last time I presented you LUCID, while today I want to talk about Defrost, a Virtual Reality mini-serie by Feral Dog Productions.

Defrost is one of the first Virtual Reality series, but to be honest, it seems to me more a movie divided into different scenes. There are 12 episodes, and every one of them lasts something like 5 minutes. In every episode, you live a little part of the whole story, but this part is so little that actually, in my opinion, can’t be defined as an “episode”. So, IMHO, this is more a one-hour movie divided into 12 scenes, a bit like Miyubi. And exactly like Miyubi, this division helps the viewer to relax a bit during the whole duration of the movie: watching a video long one hour in VR may be tiresome, so some in-between breaks are needed.

The official description of the movie is as follows

DEFROST takes place in the year 2045, when liquid nitrogen is now commonly used to freeze patients until remedies for their illnesses are developed. The series follows the experience of Joan Garrison as she wakes up from her frozen state after thirty years. She reunites with her family, but the reunion is bittersweet, as the passage of time has caused her loved ones to become strangers. Defrost was filmed in 360° and 3D, allowing audience members to witness the story directly from Joan’s perspective. The result is an intimate and immersive experience. 

So, Defrost is actually a long 360 3D movie. In it, you impersonate Joan, a woman that wakes up after 30 years that she was put in a cryogenic state because of a stroke that happened in 2015. Now she can be cured, so she has been awakened and cured… and while still in confusion for the thawing, she meets again all her family. But 30 years are a long time… so her children are now grown up and have already married. Her husband is an old man. Nothing is like before… everything has changed. Apart from her physical aspect: she still looks very young.

To make things worse, Joan, that is you, can’t talk, can’t walk, can’t move at all. The recovery is very complicated, so she is on a wheelchair and her relatives have to try to understand what she thinks just by looking at her face. After the initial joy of meeting again, things start getting creepy: the family has lots of problems, and even the clinic has something strange happening there… but I can’t tell you more because I don’t want to spoil much. You have to watch the series if you want to discover that.

There are some things that I really loved in Defrost. The first one is giving a sense to 360 videos. 360 videos are terrible because you can’t move and you can’t interact with the environment in any way. Since the character you embody can’t move, can’t speak, can’t do anything, the limitations become pretty normal. You see them less as a limit, because actually, it is not possible for you to do more since you are paralyzed.

The other one is the discomfort that it is able to foster. I stress this every time: VR is great to create emotions, and when a VR experience creates an emotion in me, I think it is doing good. Defrost is able to create discomfort and does this pretty well. Imagine the situation: you are in a wheelchair, and you can’t express yourself, you can’t move... and you are in a strange cryogenic hospital that has something wrong with it. Most of the time, the doctors keep you awake for a little time and then they sedate you again, preventing her from enjoying your life. And since you can’t do anything, you can’t avoid in any way the things you don’t like. Wouldn’t you feel very bad about it? Oh yes, I bet that you would.

But there is even more: the people that should support you, that is your family, are very complicated… most of the time they are not even that helpful and they stress you. Or they just think about their benefits. They don’t understand your thoughts: you can hear the thoughts of Joan, so you know what she is thinking… and almost always they don’t get what she is really thinking, they misunderstand. This creates even more frustration

Because of all of this, Joan is often stressed and you can hear this because you can hear her breath becoming heavy and fast. You can hear her thoughts when she’s scared. And you will feel absolutely powerless since you can’t do anything to improve your situation. There are a lot of moments where you would like to run away because you are scared, or you would like to scream things at the bad people around you, but you can’t. This is what Defrost is fantastic in conveying: a sense of frustration, impotence, fear… and this is really very strong. Joan’s stress becomes your stress, her fears become your fears. I felt quite uncomfortable while watching it… and this sensation remained to me for long even after I removed the headset… It was really powerful, maybe the best thing about all the series.

Another thing that I liked is how each episode of the series begins and ends: with an animation that simulates you getting to sleep or waking up. Every episode has the same structure: you wake up, live 5 minutes awake and then are put to sleep again. This enforces a lot the sense of presence, since this begin and end are very coherent with what would happen in a hospital situation, with you being constantly sedated. It is not an abrupt ending like a fade to black, it is completely in line with the story.

The last pro side worth a mention is that they tried to envision how the future can be in 2045: it is not too different from the present, but there are virtual calls, androids, cryogenics, etc… It is a nice trip into the future, even if I think that in 30 years the world will be different than the one depicted in Defrost… I imagine more AR devices and less androids…

The plot is not that much complicated, but it will leave you curious about what is going to happen in the end: will she recover? What is happening in the hospital? You will discover it only in the last episode. The screenwriter has done his job well in creating this sense of mistery. For what concerns the plot, I have to admit that there are some things that I have found a bit strange (like the behaviour of Joan’s grandson) and that I haven’t loved the ending that much… it seemed to me a bit simplistic. The plot is not bad, but it could have been refined a bit more.

The level of comfort is good… there are some movements that can trigger motion sickness in some people, but they are limited in time. Most of the action happens in front of the user (behind you there’s always the nurse pushing your wheelchair), so you won’t have to rotate your head that much.

The actors do their job pretty well. This is a high-quality production and it can be seen easily. The press release of Defrost underlines that there is Carl Weathers, a popular Hollywood actor that has played in movies like Rocky and Predator. But if you are a fan, calm down: you will just see him like 30 seconds, then he disappears forever!

Summarizing, I think that Defrost is a high-quality virtual reality mini-series. It is enjoyable, it fosters some strong feelings and it shows some creative solutions. On the downsides, I think that it has no mind-blowing moments and it mostly uses a traditional narrative. And the plot is nice, but it could have been improved, especially at the end.

I enjoyed watching it, and I think that you would enjoy spending some time watching it as well. If you are interested, it costs $9.99 on VeeR.

I hope you have enjoyed this review… and if it is the case, please subscribe to my newsletter. And now, let’s all get hyped for the launch of Oculus Quest and Vive Index!

(Header image by Feral Dog)