Terreur dans l'Arctique

Seeing Ice Road Terror was not that mind blowing. The film actually had decent acting, somewhat good action, and a simple plot. But overall it was nothing special.

This film is basically about a company up in Alaska that awakens a prehistoric predator "dinosaur". A couple truckers then try to take hazardous materials up to the area where the beast is, not knowing that it exists.

I actually thought the human characters were good in this film. They really seemed like truckers and were characters you could get behind. Also the girl who was the scientist was pretty good too. Surprising because usually in movies like these the humans are all cliché.

The "dinosaur" in this film is weird in that it really is a big lizard. I do not know of any predatory dinosaur that runs around on four legs. It was pretty standard CGI for this beast and it got some decent action but nothing special.

The story is pretty easy to follow.

I thought that I got tricked because they showed a carnataurus on the box and some dvds even had a tyrannosaurus on them even though neither of those dinosaurs are in this film. The only creature in this film is the giant lizard. So I don't know why they had to false advertise this film.

Pretty standard SYFY film. I do not strongly recommend it, but it isn't bad either. Watch it on a rainy day.

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.

Do ya think the SyFy Channel is even aware that all it's original flicks have pretty much ... scratch that ... have exactly the same plots and characters and simply plug in some new creature into the formula? I think they're fully aware of this and they embrace it. This way they can keep the budgets of all their Saturday night originals roughly the same (in the $1.5- $2mil range). With ICE ROAD TERROR we get the same plot and characters we've come to expect and we even get another prehistoric creature freed from the ice (more on this in a minute). But what makes ICE ROAD TERROR stand out from the pack is the fact that it's fun ... really fun. I found myself having more fun with this one than I have with a SyFy flick in a really long time. Let's find out why.

While blasting in the arctic for diamonds some prehistoric creature was released that lived under the ice and snow. The creature is angry and really hungry ... really hungry. As the creature tears its way through the workers at the site, we flash over to two ice truckers Jack (Ty Olsson; who was in TV's BATTLESTAR GALACTICA & the SyFy Original BEHEMOTH) and Neil (Dylan Neal; from DAWSON'S CREEK) who're loading up to haul a huge batch of explosives to the diamond mine site -- a site that is at the end of a very long ice road. Tagging along is a large-chested scientist-environmentalist Rachel (Brea Grant; who was in Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN 2 & 16 episodes of TV's HEROES). I mean come on; ya gotta have the female love interest for one of these rugged truckers who has a heart of gold!!

There's some harrowing moments as we watch the trucks struggle on the ice road and wonder if they're gonna make it (yeah right). But the real fun begins once they get to the diamond mine site. Mostly everyone is dead and our threesome of heroes quickly find out there's a huge creature chomping on limbs and tearing apart bodies. So they high tail it out of there and the creature, which is some mythical Inuit legend, follows them for hundreds of miles to a cabin in the woods. Here the trio, as well as the couple who live at the cabin, make their last stand against the creature. There's sympathetic characters who die; heroic characters who sacrifice themselves for the others; and the standard last man/woman standing who finally get so angry they kill the creature. There's nothing new here ...

... except I found myself having a really fun time!! The film moves at a great pace and gives us lots of action. We wait all of five minutes before we see the creature (which as far as I can make out is called a "Wangchoke;" seriously) and it starts tearing apart the cast just as quickly. Plus writer Keith Shaw (who also wrote the very fun MALIBU SHARK ATTACK) and director Terry Ingram weren't afraid to show off a little blood, guts, and gore. The camera doesn't turn away as the creature rips people apart and throws around body parts and I was pleasantly surprised by the gore content. Of course this is no DEAD ALIVE, but for a SyFy Original we get some pretty fun gory moments.

Most noticeable here is the pacing. We don't get the typical "let's meet the characters for a while" scenes. We meet the characters and get to know them while they're fighting for their lives. The scenes on the ice road are pretty good (in a silly way) as the creature dives and re- surfaces in and out of the ice like some frigid version of the beasts from TREMORS. And of course there's some stuff that just doesn't follow. Example: You'd think Jack, who's an experienced ice trucker, would spend more than five minutes and use more than a bungee cord to secure the explosives in his truck!! His truck catches on fire and he and Rachel must jump into the cab of Neil's truck while they're still driving. After making them jump from one moving truck to another, Neil then decides he needs to stop to check something out. So why didn't he just stop and let them walk to the truck in the first place??!!

But the real fun comes when they make their way to one of Jack's old friends who luckily has the only cabin in about a 500 mile radius!! There they make their stand against the Wangchoke (I swear that's what it's called). Another stand out element in ICE ROAD TERROR is the acting. Everyone involved does a great job and they all look like they're having a really fun time. This energy was infectious and you'll feel it!! The Wangchoke is of course 100% CGI, but it looks way better than the typical SyFy Original. Not since the giant spiders in ICE SPIDERS have I been impressed by a CGI creation. The Wangchoke has realistic movements and has a lot of details in it's design.

For all intents and purposes I should be writing my typical "skip it" review for ICE ROAD TERROR. But due to solid performances, a good looking and scary CGI monster, a really fast pace, and lots of spraying blood and gory, meaty looking body parts being thrown around, ICE ROAD TERROR is a really fun "giant creature attacks" flick. Nice job guys and keep 'em coming like this one!!

Please note that I've given ICE ROAD TERROR, a SyFy Original, a higher rating that SUPER 8. Shame on you J.J. Abrams!!

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

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.

I've come across some ridiculous movies but a film produced in 2011 in HD of this level should not be allowed. Special effects that are actually worse than the film "The blob" 1958. I thought it was going to turn into a comedy, waiting for the lizard to start break dancing to Micheal Jackson's black or white!!! On a serious note though its not a bad film if the budget was $10000 Nice trucks and some very nice Case machinery. You have to see it. Ice Road truckers meets Jurassic park Very laughable. If your a fan of man eating iguanas its certainly one for you. Acting is very borderline but with the material given I'm sure any mainstream actor would not have been affordable