Christmas Icetastrophe (2014)

Christmas Icetastrophe is your usual nonsense disaster movie that played on the SyFy Channel. The story is no different to at least half a dozen others that have already been made and shown on that channel, and it merely consists of characters running away from a fast-moving mess of cold air which freezes anything it touches. A meteorite caused the disaster this time around, somewhat unbelievably. The cast is made up of clichéd characters, the script is monotonous, and the references to A Christmas Carol are completely pointless. Add in your usual round of awful CGI effects and you have all the ingredients. It really is an unrewarding film.

Aside for a selective few, like the recent Everest, disaster movies don't really have amazing track record. So, one would already expect what to come from the poster or title here. Christmas Icetastrophe works by incorporating cheap CGI and shots where people stand very still to create the illusion of being frozen. It's as silly as it sounds and even worse when one finds out that the trigger is meteor fall.As common sense, or countless depictions of Hollywood, would dictate, a meteor usually falls down to Earth in blazing glory. For this movie however, it will create instant ice age to wherever it touches. Scientific reasoning be damned, yet it still tries to convince audience with pseudoscience mumbo-jumbo, which undoubtedly be a great pivotal point for the plot.Cast is all sort of cliché. You have the heroic father, the one scientist who figures things out, the douchebag who may or may not redeem himself, incompetent authority figure, a few sidekicks for brief comedy and half of the town for death scenes. Everything plays out in dramatically predictable way.The effect itself is far from convincing, most of them literally a blue filter being applied to create cold effect. There are many scenes where people instantly freeze over in ludicrous fashion. It does tend to repeat this tricks many times over, it becomes stale and not even hammy funny at the end.Being B-movie doesn't exemplified the lack of quality but for a movie called Christmas Icetastrophe, it delivers what expected of it, with the conviction and thrill of random employee forced to work at holiday.

There is nothing trite about this flick…well…except for everything. Additionally this movie is absolutely original and there is nothing formulaic about it. Why, you ask…because it is all true. Of course if one has seen 'Jaws' and/or 'Dante's Peak', one may be inclined to believe that nothing was original in this movie. To them I say, 'Ha!' – I will not be taken down by such negativity. "Christmas Icetastrophy' is a fun time-killer, well worth some of my attention. The CGI is pretty good except for the icicles jumping out of the ground. I think the cast was perfectly selected. For example, I think Victor Webster, who plays 'Charlie Ratchet', is no dull man-tool. So manly a man, I suspect he might have even shared a socket or two with Jennifer Spence's character, Alex. Dr. Alex Novak, is a professor coming down from the university. What university, you say? Ha! It's THEE University of course. So you know she is very smart and talks smartly as well. Professor Novak had such important lines, allow me to share one, 'Wait, no one's going to believe me.' So many more catch-phrases of wisdom are uttered by The Neuro-Meteorological-Nympho-Astrophysicist from THEE University that I lose count. I will say, that every phrase she gasps is key - so pay close attention. Mayor Gibbons (played by Ben Cotton) enters the story as some arrogant, dumb, man-ape (gibbon – get it.) Lots of bad things happen to him and he ends up as some kind of quasi-hero at the end. 'Post-spoiler alert,' don't read the sentence before this one or else you know he survives. As in other classics (i.e., 'Sharknado'), main characters die all over the place, but that is what makes up any classic icetastrophy. I have seen this once; enjoyed it, but doubt I will see this again. I think it is worth one view at least…and for those who get hooked…buy the DVD. I am not hooked, but I was entertained.

In a nutshell.....asteroid hits town starting to celebrate Christmas, Santa gets flash frozen, people scream, people flee and good looking lead actor and actress save town just before everyone is flash frozen. Too bad Mystery Science Theater is not still on TV, because this movie is perfect for it. There is no story line, no character development, no acting of note, no anything other than wall-to-wall things/people being flash frozen. There is not even a point to who is/isn't flash frozen. But trying to find something positive to say, it does have a lot of actors who were in other shows/movies that were much better. Its just a classically bad sci-fi movie and the kind of movie for people who are into such things.