Year: 1999
Duration: 01:56:44
Directed by: Eric Stanze
Actors: D.J. Vivona, Ramona Midgett, Angela Zimmerly
Language: English
Country: USA
Also known as:
Description:
One of the most ambitious Super 8 Horror Films since The Dead Next Door, Ice From The Sun has a difficult job to do in living up to it’s imaginative story. It is one of the most visually stunning films made at such a low budget, although the quality of the sound and the acting is often lacking. It is definitely one film where a big budget remake is definitely recommended, but fans of original cinema should definitely check this film out. You may love it or hate it and rarely fall in the middle, but you will recognise that Stanze has a talent for doing something a little different and just needs to befriend some philanthropic billionaire.
An evil wizard has created an alternative dimension encased in Ice from the Sun, where he can lure 6 willing humans to torture for his own amusement. His apprentice known as ‘The Presence’ (D.J Vivona) kills the wizard for control of the realm, accidentally freeing a woman and allowing her to escape back to Earth. Heaven and Hell are alerted to the fact that The Presence may be defeated if they can remind him of his human origins. Only humans can enter the dimension, so the powers pick a recent suicide (Ramona Midgett) to be the reluctant assassin, distracting him enough so that his guard will be down and they can finish him off.
Like most low budget Horror films, we know that we have a small cast and they will all be killed off one by one. Retreading familiar ground that Stanze uncovered in Savage Harvest you may be forgiven for being hesitant about there being enough originality. I can assure you that even though the film wasn’t too difficult to work out, it still had plenty of originality and heart to keep me entertained.
The film often achieves a nightmarish quality with its Super-8mm grainy images and rabid jump cuts and unusual angles. Writer-director Eric Stanze has created a low budget horror with visual similarities to Natural Born Killers and the glut of rich graphic imagery to be found in Industrial music videos. It’s not easy to watch but it definitely has its merits.
The film is overly long and seems to fluctuate constantly between an Auteur masterpiece and amateur student film. Many of the scenes could have done with the rapid jump cuts that are evident in the visual montage sequences. Not because the scenes were overly shocking in content, but to beef up the pacing. Some of the deaths take too long, so that you almost think of them as part of an anthology, but the effects, especially for the exploding head are a worthy punch line
The main criticisms I could not escape were: The sound is often poor when recorded at the time of shooting and not enough post editing was done to clear it up to match the superior quality of the added Voiceovers and Sound FX. Also the reality scenes were not clean enough of grain/focus to differentiate them from the Ice realm sequences. I did not empathise with the cast, it wasn’t always down to the acting, but rather the dreamlike story telling device actually caused me to simply treat the characters as characters and wait for them to die one by one. The lead, Alison, was the most disappointing aspect of this lack of empathy. The only thing I felt sorry about for her was that she couldn’t commit suicide in peace. Her performance wasn’t bad, but I just didn’t care for her at all, which is all-important as far as lead characters are concerned.
The main praise is for the filmmakers and the ballsy way that they managed to turn a tiny budget and some super 8 film into a nerve jangling slice of original horror cinema, turning everyday locations and bare-budget sets into areas of a tortured mind.
Hollywood may not know he exists yet, but Eric Stanze and his highly dedicated band of filmmakers will one day break down their doors and terrorise their wives with a new breed of horror.
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