In the icy desolation of Nunavut’s tundra, where the snow never melts and the sun barely rises, something ancient has awakened. After the explosive encounter with subterranean Graboids beneath the Arctic research station, Burt Gummer — now weakened by the parasitic toxin left in his blood — retreats into isolation. But the monsters didn’t die with the snow. They evolved. Faster. Smarter. And more resilient to cold than ever before.
When a covert U.S.-Canadian expedition vanishes near a remote borehole, Valerie McKee, daughter of Valentine McKee and a rising xenobiologist, is dispatched to investigate. She reluctantly seeks out Burt, whose body is deteriorating, but whose knowledge of the creatures remains unmatched. Joined by a crew of mercenaries, scientists, and an Inuit guide who speaks of “ice serpents” from legend, they plunge into the frostbitten wilderness — only to find the Graboids have created a subterranean hive network beneath the glaciers.
But what terrifies them most isn’t the cold-adapted monsters. It’s what the Graboids are protecting. Hidden beneath the ice lies a prehistoric ecosystem preserved for millions of years — one that government black-ops units have been studying in secret. The creatures are no longer random anomalies; they are part of an ancient biological weapon system, perhaps even alien in origin, long buried beneath Earth’s crust. The borehole didn't wake them — it freed them.
With communications severed and the storm sealing them in, the team must fight for survival. Burt, facing his own mortality, dons his gear one last time for a suicidal mission to destroy the central hive. As Graboid shriekers evolve into a new hybrid form that can glide across ice and leap across crevasses, every second becomes a blood-soaked struggle. Valerie must choose: follow her father’s legacy and contain the threat — or expose the truth to a world not ready for what lies beneath.In a final act of sacrifice, Burt detonates the geothermal vents, collapsing the hive and sealing the creatures once more beneath layers of volcanic frost. But as Valerie escapes with the footage and a single Graboid egg pulsing in containment, she realizes this wasn’t just a cold day in hell — it was the beginning of the thaw. And hell… is about to spread.
