Ice from the Sun

To anyone here who hasn't seen it, I strongly recommend this Eric Stanze film. Even considering its several flaws [grainy image, very uneven acting, sometimes-awkward dialog], it's still one of the best, most entertaining and thought-provoking micobudget independent horrors out there. I've heard it described from a cross between The Matrix and Lost Highway [not sure what that means, exactly ] to a Clive Barker film as directed by Trent Reznor, which is closer to the mark. The story can be summed up thus: an evil wizard takes his apprentice into an alternate universe of his own creation, and every few years they kidnap six people and torture-kill them, then take their souls, until the apprentice, now ultra-powerful and re-named The Presence, overthrows the wizard and takes over, prompting Heaven and Hell to recruit a female suicide victim as a sort of astral-plane assassin to pass through the wall of ice and destroy this "abomination of space and time" Gore, nudity, and lots of just plain unsettling images and sounds follow. I never thought I'd say this, but Ice From The Sun is not just a movie to be watched; it's an experience to be had.

Uhhh…I guess it is about a man named "The Presence" that rules an alternate universe between Heaven and Hell encased in "ice from the sun" (not making this up). A suicide victim named Allison is hired as an assassin to hunt him (still not making this up). She must make him remember who he was as a person to break the ice. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is that you must sit through 30min of dialogue before you watch her take what can only be described as a 60min trip through a NIN music video.

Okay, here we go again (see Savage Harvest review). Stanze insists on casting unattractive people with no charisma. You will not want to watch them on screen or care to listen to them talk. This is a problem considering his films boast 30 minutes of talky-talky before you see anything. I have a feeling he has good stories to tell, which is why he continues to bore us with lengthy tales before sending us some ghastly images. I dare you to watch this without hitting the fast forward button once. I get the feeling that if Stanze had a decent budget and hired good actors, his films would be better. He has good ideas, but does not achieve them.

There is decent gore and sound quality here. The only scene that would be of interest was an innocent woman stripped, tied to the back of a truck, driven a mile, then covered in salt as you watch her squirm. I have no idea who this person is or why this is happening or who the nice gentleman is driving the truck. Again, the dialogue was so boring, you fast-forward, and then stop when you get to a good scene, but it has no meaning.

Favorite Quote: Stanze during the commentary when he says that this was the lowest budgeted film made at the time. This would mean that any film up to 1999 cost more than this. I think Lloyd Kaufman would beg to differ. Stanze also mentions that Super 8 looks like a music video, not film, so my description of the film is correct.

DVD Extras: Trailers, Still Gallery, and Commentary.

Bottom Line: If you like slow-moving modern horror fantasy tales, then I guess you might dig this.

Rating: 6/10

Molly Celaschi www.HorrorYearbook.com MySpace.com/HorrorYearbook

I'm not here to say this is a bad movie. Just to say that this whole film really is a waste. Bare with me here....

I just downloaded a version of this film. After hearing about it for a long time and not being able to find it. From what I herd it was a "trippy gore fantasy containing religious aspects" it still seems very interesting. And as I herd more and more about the film and its story I was even more in a hurry to see it.

The opening was very dull and would mark the quality of the rest of the movie. What do I mean? The fact that it was shot in super 8, the black and white was as expected very nice to look at. The parts of the movie that were shot in color were horrible and I don't mean just top look at but the acting, the sound, everything. It was as it was made, by some guy in a basement. You could hear all the background noise, scratches and at some points I think I herd talking and people dropping things. But I could be wrong.

The actors were for lack of a better word bad. As I watched them force out there lines against the horrible shaking camera (another really horrible flaw) the lead woman played by Ramona Midgett was the worst part. She acted as good as she looked. which is not insult to her as much as a criticism of the work she did, if she would have done the same work in a better production it would not be as bad, as the quality of her scene were 90% of the color segments. As with the phrase "two wrongs don't make a right" The only good acting was that of Charles Heuvelman the Twisted Priest in the Movie Theater and Alexander Crestwood the Drug Runner. As you could tell they had experience in there craft or at least an understanding. Angela Zimmerly ('Dana' in the film) was the best of the central cast as she able to show a calmness and emotion that made her character. as the others more or less seemed to be just friends of the filmmakers inserted into rolls.

The acting, filming, sound and choice to use color is the worst elements of the film. Which I must say is around 50% of the movie. The other half is very well done and to me on par with a lot of indie cinema. As the black and white looked nice, and or consisted of very nicely crafted editing.

Further more the editing was great, as were most of the special effects. This is the only good thing about the movie. The people involved should be proud of that. As it was the only place there was talent. Theses areas are the only reason in my mind to watch the film.

I feel the film should have been filmed in black and white and possibly dubbed in studio. or just have been put togehter from all the special effects and edits, etc. as it would have made a very nice to watch art film. A perfect example was the 4.5-minute-long opening credit sequence. As I could not take my eyes of the screen. At the moment I felt was watching a good music video, but even that had its flaws because it seemed abet out of place in the movie.

The finished product is not a very good film, it has its good moments but the all around quality of half the film is just bad. This puzzles me because the other half was very nice to watch. There's is too much give and take in the film. It's like a visual Ying-Yang, you are either mesmerized buy the sheer beauty or horrified but the over all quality of the aspects involved. It's the flawed parts that anchor the film into being a bad piece of work. This saddens me because I really gave the film a chance, and it has some really good moments and parts to the story. Eric Stanze the director/writer/ etc has talent this film does prove that but it's also now my prime example of how a flawed film, can be overall bad as a whole.

Bottom line.

Should have stayed a home movie.

(At least in the form it's presented)

There was so much potential in the film. But it all diminished because of a nonsense story and worst acting ever. I don't mind bad acting ("Pieces" and "Gore Gore Girls" are hilarious). But this movie was supposed to be taken in a serious context. I couldn't believe any of the acting at all. Especially the long one part where we have the whole vital background story bluntly mumbled.

Couldn't the filmmakers embed the background story in a more creative way, rather than just having a girl read it so lifelessly as if she's being forced to read homework? I felt like I was trying to read through those long boring "User Agreement" things, which nobody reads in reality.

After closer listens to the story, I found it to be just fantasy mumbo jumbo. There was no enlightening view points given, which is something I look for in all forms of art that are taken seriously. "Dawn of the Dead" & "28 Day's Later" are good examples of horror movies that teach us something.

It's as if the poor story was just thrown in so they could have an excuse for calling the wild experimentation with cinema a "movie".

All in all, the blunder from that narration really threw me off the whole movie. I couldn't piece together any relevance to the creative bizarre (yet limited to low budget) imagery with the dialogue. The movie died in front of my eyes as far as I'm concerned after that point. Nothing could redeem the film from that horrid narration part. No wonder it's so cheap.

Eric Stanze is a true visionary. He just has to get stronger stories and a better budget. We see crap like "Biker Boyz" cost millions to make while Stanze could create so much more with that kind of money. I really wanted to like this but the story and acting were a huge disappointment.

I should probably mention the crazy parts of the film really are like a Nine Inch Nails video, as others have said. And the film does slide in strange random images, kind of like Oliver Stone. Also, there are some gore parts but it's no "Dead Alive" or "The Beyond" in that department.

Wow. What a crazy ass flick! I've read a lot of good reviews about this one (and some bad ones as well). I'm really into films that aren't afraid to take a few chances and so I thought I'd get this one a shot! This flick was insane! Yeah, it's low budget, but it was way more creative than most of the flicks I see coming out of Hollyweird these days.

I dug the story (even though it was a little talky in the beginning), the visuals and the editing were great and it had some awesome gore effects. What I really loved was the music. It features a great collection of songs from the St. Louis music scene (like the Ded Bugs and Johnny Magnet). I got to pick up a copy of the soundtrack. To top it all off, the movie had a great performance from DJ Vivona as The Presence. I think most of the acting was pretty solid overall (I've seen a lot of low/no budget flicks and compared to them, the acting in this is pretty impressive), but I thought the character of The Presence was very interesting and unique and Vivona did a lot to make the character memorable.

Like I said, this movie was made on a low-budget, so imagine my surprise when I get this tricked out 2-disc edition. How awesome is this? You don't see too many movies made at this budget level get such a nice presentation on DVD. Well, I loved the film and the DVD with all its extras was money well spent. If you're looking for something different and unusual, you should do yourself a favor and check this flick out!