Ice from the Sun

ICE FROM THE SUN, directed by Eric Stanze, is easily the most visually stimulating movie I have seen in some time. It's just amazing to look at. Stanze paints images that are some of the most fulfilling I've seen and they leave you craving more. What's unbelievable is that he accomplished this on the micro-budget level and may have just raised the levels for all of us.

With this expressionistic tale, style and form play more important roles than content and story. Stanze mixes formats, image textures, and sounds to create some of the most effective horror film atmosphere since Sam Raimi with the original EVIL DEAD.

There isn't so much a plot as a premise which allow events to unfold. A figure known as The Presence, who was once a wizard's apprentice, has become an entity so powerful and bloodthristy that both the angels in Heaven and demons in Hell fear him. He reigns in a dimension found within magical ice scraped taken form the face of the Sun.

A young woman, Alison, is resurrected after taking her life in order to assassinate The Presence. She is instructed that while she journeys to confront The Presence, there will be 6 other mortals brought to this realm. Their roles are to die and Alison is ordered to not interfere. After all, everyone has a reason for thier existence.

The stories of The Six make up the bulk of the film. Each character is dealt scenarios that mirror their personalities. A vain woman who uses looks and sex is literally turned into a dog and put out of her misery. Fortunately Stanze sees to it that the rest of the movie isn't so O'Henry-esque and that the scenes are more of a chance to explore human nature.

I do want to pass along a note of warning, this film is graphic. Either extreme gore or abundant nudity populate almost every scene. While none of the images are designed to arouse, they nevertheless leaves the viewer breathless, amazed, and transfixed.

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've always been a fan of Eric Stanze's ICE FROM THE SUN. It has a very unusual visual style, a cool storyline, great music, good performances (especially DJ Vivona, who I thought was good in CHINA WHITE SERPENTINE) and some awesome gore! Still, I wasn't all that thrilled with the original DVD release. It had a few extras, but it kinda felt a little barebones for my taste.

This new release from Image Entertainment kicks ass! This 2-disc edition has a ton of extras! ON THIN ICE, a feature length documentary about the making of ICE FROM THE SUN that was released on VHS is included on this edition. It was fascinating to see the whole process on how the movie was made. Besides the new commentary tracks (nice), the improved picture and sound (very nice), and all the other extras, it has the trailer for the new Wicked Pixel flick DEADWOOD PARK, which looks amazing. Can't wait to check that one out.

If you love the flick like I do, you gotta pick this baby up. You won't regret it!

A low budget shot on video horror flick that kicks ass!! Great story, good cinematography, good music score, it lacks only a greater budget to make this thing a real beauty. As it stands, it is partly undeveloped, but it is full of very clever ideas and its vision is strongly reccomended to all horror fans

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.