Terror del camino del hielo

There are some interesting movies coming from the SyFy Channel - "Ice Road Terror", however, was not one of them. This movie was bad in practically every sense of the word.

The story in "Ice Road Terror" is about some miners who accidentally blast into some subterranean cavern where they unleash a prehistorical reptile. And it is up to a couple of truck drivers and a researcher to put a stop to the prehistoric terror.

Right, well that was a fairly generic storyline for a monster movie. Taken right out of the 'how to make a prehistoric monster movie for dummies' book. Not only was there so many holes in the plot, but so many things in the movie were bad as well.

First of all, if a prehistoric reptile was trapped inside a cave, what has it been eating? And given its size, it would have had a lot of food available. Which leads me to the next thing that comes to mind, was the reptile frozen beneath the ice? If so, why would a single explosion thaw it up and render it completely mobile, not to mention bringing it back to life?

Given the title of the movie, then this alleged ice road that the truck drivers were driving on was solid enough to sustain the weight of two loaded trucks, and would have been in use for awhile, as the mining site already had stuff up there. But still, the reptile broke through the ice to snatch up a man. But wait, it gets better, as the reptile does this, the ice shown is mere inches thick. How could this possibly support the weight of loaded rigs? Wow, that was an epic mistake.

One thing that really had me puzzled was just how did the reptile manage to catch a ride on top of the truck? How did it get up there? Even more impressively, how did it get up there without anyone noticing. And while we are on the topic of the top of the truck, how did Jack manage to get up there when he clearly fell down to the ice road while the truck was in motion? I guess both Jack and the prehistoric reptile are magicians of sorts and know how to teleport.

And now that we know that prehistoric lizards enjoy scaling things and being on top of roofs, then just how did the wooden building manage to support the weight of the prehistoric reptile when it was on the roof of the porch. That was just some very impressive Innuit craftsmanship right there.

The most memorable and stupid scenes of the movie would have to be when Jack used the gasoline pump as a flamethrower. That was just unbelievable. I never new that gas pumps nozzles sprayed out gasoline with that much force to be able to make such a fan of flame. That just had me laughing out loud.

The CGI in the movie were below adequate, because the reptile was really fake most of the time, and I bet I would be running for my life too if I saw such a horribly animated CGI prehistoric lizard come running towards me.

The one good thing that "Ice Road Terror" had working for it - aside from this hilarious movie title - was the acting. People actually did good jobs with their given roles, despite having everything stacked against them in forms of a horrible script, an abysmal CGI animated prehistoric lizard, and one flaw after another through the movie.

"Ice Road Terror" is the embodiment of low budget B-movies, and something that is often seen coming from the SyFy Channel. SyFy Channel do manage to impress every now and then with some great movie, "Ice Road Terror" wasn't at least bit interesting. However, you might find some enjoyment in the movie if you are fan of these low budget monster movies where the only horror is how fake whatever creature is in the movie is.

Up in Alaska, two trucker buddies and a pretty geologist deliver a load of explosives to a diamond mine. When they arrive they find bloody carnage all around. Turns out the miners unearthed some kind of dinosaur lizard thing and it's not happy. A cheesy made-for-TV movie that's enjoyable in spite of its flaws. This is in large part due to the main actors. Dylan Neal and Ty Olsson play the truckers. The two play well off one another and make for believable buddies. Olsson gets the unfortunate task of playing the stoic hero and seems to be taking this whole thing entirely too seriously at times. Neal is the best part of the movie, giving a clichéd macho douchebag character some charisma. Cutie Brea Grant is very likable and manages to rise above the material quite well. The rest of the cast is made up of bland Canadian actors; the most recognizable of which is Michael Hogan from Battlestar Galactica. The special effects are, not surprisingly, terrible. The monster is a cheap CGI cartoon. The movie's not scary in the least and it barely tries to be. The horror elements in this are worthy of the low IMDb score. The action scenes aren't impressive, either. Really the overall production is of poor quality. Still, it's one of the better SyFy movies I've seen because it has likable leads and a healthy dose of "so bad it's good" humor. Keep in mind, most SyFy movies are bottom-of-the-barrel crap so my score for this is grading on a curve.

If you are familiar with the movies the SyFy channel produces, this being one of them, you are probably understandably prepared for the worst. I certainly was, but I was amazed that this movie proved to be even worse than I thought it would be! For starters, the creature effects are awful, done with cut-rate CGI. The rest of the movie looks extremely cheap as well, despite the bulk of the movie taking place in the isolated wilderness. But what really sinks this movie is the extremely incompetent writing and direction. There is poor continuity, like when the creature is stabbed in the eye but later is shown with no wound to that eye. (Also, characters several times jump from one location to another in seconds IN THE SAME SCENE!) Even if you watch this during a lazy weekend when you don't want to think, you'll find your intelligence being insulted.

It seems the writers had a 'good' idea for a horror movie, but the producers got in the way. The CGI of the monster is pretty bad. I'm sure that someone that know's horror movies could have improved this flick without adding to the cost.

The female character doesn't add anything to the story, but she is nice to look at. Why they decided to use a lizard as a monster is another odd thing. But maybe it's easier to make a lizard in CGI than some other creature with fur. It is Alaska after all, something with fur would be make more sense.

I have nothing more to add, but I need ten lines to post this so I'm just going to cut and paste what I all ready have written.

It seems the writers had a 'good' idea for a horror movie, but the producers got in the way. The CGI of the monster is pretty bad. I'm sure that someone that know's horror movies could have improved this flick without adding to the cost.

The female character doesn't add anything to the story, but she is nice to look at. Why they decided to use a lizard as a monster is another odd thing. But maybe it's easier to make a lizard in CGI than some other creature with fur. It is Alaska after all, something with fur would be make more sense.

It seems the writers had a 'good' idea for a horror movie, but the producers got in the way. The CGI of the monster is pretty bad. I'm sure that someone that know's horror movies could have improved this flick without adding to the cost.

The female character doesn't add anything to the story, but she is nice to look at. Why they decided to use a lizard as a monster is another odd thing. But maybe it's easier to make a lizard in CGI than some other creature with fur. It is Alaska after all, something with fur would be make more sense.

I did expect something worse than what I got with Ice Road Terror, though that is not saying much. It is a pretty rubbish and ridiculous movie, but I do think with stuff like Titanic II, Mega Piranha, Alien vs. Hunter, Almighty Thor, Super Tanker, Quantum Apocalypse, 2010: Moby Dick, Battle of Los Angeles and The Apocalypse that SyFy have done much worse.

Although the bad outweigh the good, there are some assets that are halfway decent, some nice scenery, a likable enough performance from Brea Grant and the cabin sequence, which tries hard to give the characters some credibility.

On the other hand, Ice Road Terror is a rather scrappy looking film, scenery aside. The editing is hackneyed and doesn't make much sense going from one scene to another, and the monster graphics while not as bad as other efforts from SyFy look very cheap. Not to mention the CGI, especially with the truck sliding and skidding over the hole in the ice, which look very half-baked.

The script is terrible, with very cheesy and repetitive dialogue further disadvantaged by wooden line delivery, and the story is predictable with one too many ridiculous scenes such as how the monster actually managed to get on top of the truck and the idea of a monster having a 7th sense. Pacing is another issue, nothing much engages making the film seem dull, and some of the more action-y parts have a rushed feel to them. The characters are bland, despite the cabin sequence's best efforts, any character development is too brief and too late, while the monster is lacking almost completely in menace.

When it comes to the acting, I liked Grant, but didn't care at all for anybody else. Again, I've seen worse, but the acting generally comes across as forced to me. All in all, I've seen worse, but a few decent things aren't enough to save Ice Road Terror from being rubbish. 3/10 Bethany Cox