Ice Quake (2010)

Two names in the film industry are known for creating bad movies, really bad movies and movies so bad they're good. The first is Asylum pictures, they are responsible for movies including Mega Piranha (2010), Titanic II (2010) and Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus (2009). These movies are often shown on the SyFy channel. The second is the SyFy channel itself. They make and distribute TV Movies such as Sharktopus (2010) and Collision Earth (2011). However both of these film companies sometimes deliver the goods. They are known to cast well known actors, many of them may be only doing the film for an easy pay check but they often put in a great over the top performance. A good example is the great Michael Madsen in Piranhaconda (2011).Ice Quake is a SyFy movie so instantly I didn't have great expectations for this. But every now and then when watching a film you have to "slum" it. You can't watch blockbusters all the time, sometimes you need a cheesy movie night!As I said, I had no expectations for a great movie and I was fully expecting very dodgy effects and terrible acting, however this one didn't turn out too bad.The film starts off with two geologists investigating unexplained earth tremors on a mountain. Suddenly a crack appears and a strange gas escapes from the ground instantly freezing anything that touches it. It turns out to be liquid methane and if it escapes it will destroy all life on earth! May sound far-fetched but from SyFy, the company behind Dinocroc vs. Supergator (2010), this movie is very tame.The film stars Brendan Fehr as Michael Webster, a geologist and Holly Elissa as his wife Emily. Jodelle Ferland & Ryan Grantham play their children. The cast also includes Victor Garber, Rob LaBelle, Marsha Regis, Sharon Taylor & Kurt Max Runte. All have quite impressive film resumes and you will probably have seen most of them on something else. All the actors in this do an above average job for a TV movie, but I don't think this will be the highlight of their careers!The setting of the film is great with the impressive scenery of the Alaskan mountains used to great effect. Speaking of effects these were some of the better ones used in the movies made by SyFy. However I guess they didn't have to spend the effect budget on crazy monsters like in Dinoshark (2010), so they had a little more to play with here. The only really dodgy effect was the supposed satellite image of the underground methane.There are many plot holes in this but after all it is a TV Movie not a big blockbuster. These films are made to entertain you when you can't decide on anything else to watch. This one manages that, just. It is a throwaway movie but there are far worse ones out there. If it is on and you can't decide on anything else to watch, this will pass an hour and a half of your time.As I said before, this is one of the better SyFy films. I think it is too much to hope that they will keep getting better. But with their future film "Jersey Shore Shark Attack" coming this June, who knows!?

While I do not like most of Syfy's movies, I do watch them to see if there are any decent ones or any with novelty value. Ice Quake isn't a terrible movie and Syfy have certainly done much worse. The scenery is quite striking, the story was interesting in concept and to start with, Brendan Fehr is cute, charming and does show at least a bit of charisma and the female didn't grate on me or strike me as too bland. However, Ice Quake isn't particularly good either. The acting, excepting the leads, is nothing to rave about, and I also couldn't connect to most of the characters, so much so towards the end I honestly didn't really care about whether they lived or died. The effects are rather generic, the film does have some dodgy flashlight technology and while it is not as bad as other Syfy movies there are many inconsistencies and errors, the one regarding the methane is just one of these. The direction and pace are both uneven, there are times when the direction is tolerable but others when it is sloppy and hackneyed and in regards to the pace the middle drags and the end feels rushed, while the script is really quite poor and clichéd. Overall, Ice Quake has its moments but it is nothing great. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Awful, just bloody awful. It is difficult to decide what negative aspect of the movie to discuss as there were so may. In fact, I would speak of a positive aspect if I could find one.I am a Canadian and cringe whenever I see that I am about to watch a Canadian movie as I have rarely seen one that did not leave me constantly saying "Oh, come on, really?" What bothers me the most is that movies such as these are funded, in part, by tax revenue in the form of government film grants. We have people living on the street, children going to bed hungry at night, and the government feels it is more beneficial to put money into dismal productions like this.I am not one who turns off a movie once I start watching one. Perhaps I am a glutton for punishment as this movie (using the word loosely) left me feeling like I threw away the portion of my life that was devoted to watching this. It is as if it was a class project done by students from a high school film class.I honestly do not understand how it is that people can produce a work like this and feel that it is good. Spend the money needed to create something of this calibre and release it on the unsuspecting public.I seldom write reviews, but I am so tired of seeing my tax dollars going to make such horrible movies that I had to vent. If given the opportunity to watch this movie or scrub toilets in a subway station, go for the toilets. It will surely be far more rewarding and enjoyable.

a new sci-fi channel (don't you hate calling it sy-fy? i sure do.) Christmas adventure set on a potentially volcanic Alaskan mountain that spawns earthquakes, endless, bottomless fissures and avalanches, as well as spewing uber-cold gas that freezes things instantly. will the brave scientist and his family (who just happen to be out getting their Christmas tree at the time) get out in time and find a way to stop the chaos before the town is destroyed? we sure hope so. this would make part of great night of icy movies with "frozen" and then "ice spiders", which was the CGI sci-fi channel movie from last year around this time. i actually kind of liked this one; they don't really get around to telling you what the problem is right away, and there aren't nearly enough scary movies full of death and destruction set during the holidays.