Director Joe Carnahan took the standard horror film format -- a group of strangers being systematically killed in the woods -- and gave it a National Geographic spin to create "The Grey."

This tale of wolves attacking plane crash survivors in the frozen wasteland of Alaska is both chilling and chilly.

Liam Neeson plays Ottway, a worker at an Alaskan oil rig whose only job is to keep wolves from attacking the workers. He's a man so haunted by his past that he comes to the brink of ending his life. Instead, in an act not completely explained, he boards a plane to return to warmer climates.

When the plane crashes, he's one of only a handful of survivors who try to save themselves. Their ordeal gets worse when hungry wolves begin to stalk them.

Unlike the traditional horror film, "The Grey" doesn't allow for passive viewing. Carnahan shot the film in sub-zero weather, giving it an authentic feel. From the men struggling to make their way through waist-deep snow to the dramatic curl of their frozen breath, "The Grey" reaches out with icy fingers to pull the viewer into the ordeal.

The movie also gets strength from a script by Carnahan and Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, which sets aside time to learn about these men. These are not just victims; they're three-dimensional characters driven by a variety of factors.

Neeson's character is the most complicated, going from a man ready to reject life to fighting for survival. It takes an actor of Neeson's caliber to play such an emotional arc, and he answers the call with great power.

The film is surprisingly strong cinematically, despite Carnahan having only a white landscape as his backdrop. He uses this blank-looking canvas to focus the attention on man and beast.

"The Grey" gets a little contrived and predictable in the final act, but, overall, this tale of man vs. beast has a haunting feel that will at times chill you to the bone.