Ice House

I have to disagree with two low star reviews. I thought this was quite a nice little drama-cum-thriller for the $70,000 budget they had to spend and that is the crux of reviewing a film, it is not just based on the acting & story but I like to take into account the budget involved and camera skills, directorial effort as well as the production and this was a fairly good little thriller; certainly better than the real 2 star awful one I watched last night and many others this year.

To be fair both the lead actors are quite capable and gave good performances, the same cannot be said of the female and other male bit part actors, the story was ok; its not going to win any oscars but neither does it try to, the action was satisfactory and i liked the ending of the film actually - it added that extra little cherry on top to make it above average viewing for me.

I am giving this a 5.5 stars out of 10 its just above average and not a bad little movie - Give this one a fair shake, you might just find it satisfies a nights viewing.

Could someone please explain the 5 second footage of the security camera in the ice house at the end of this film??? What is it? What did it mean?? It's driving me crazy!!! Please reply here or text me!!!

David Stevenson Ft Lauderdale, FL 954-789-1567.

I grew up in Brainerd lakes (5 decades+). I recognized the big walleye in Garrison & I live 25 min. From the old Granny's pub. When they turned L at the walleye they were heading toward my house! Most people around here are nice & normal like Wayne, but there are those self entitled ones like Roger that seem fine, but you just don't wanna spend a whole lot of time with. This movie just popped up after I had watched "Wander" (also a creepy movie). I thought - it's about MN, cool, I gotta take a look. WOW! Now I'm creeped out! It's like a train wreck, but I can't stop watching. Gotta go finish it - Have a good one!

The headline is all the review you need, really. The two unknowns in the leads turn in excellent performances in a film that has great dialogue, but little else. Slow, glacially paced with nothing else going for it, it's hard to recommend.

If there was a classification of C-grade films, this would be it. I have never seen or heard of any of the actors, as most are fairly newbs. This is amateur producer, editor and director Steven Elbert's first entry into filmmaking. Then you have the single resume-credit of Patrick Mills as writer.

Yes, this film has many issues in pretty much every filmmakers check-list, however, they have to start somewhere, right? You could tell from the start that this was an amateur production, probably an independent movie filmed on a shoe-string budget. The cast were inexperienced, yet eventually became convincing and started to seem experienced. Not perfect, but adequate - especially lacking casting direction from an inexperienced director.

The camera work was sloppy at first, but improved throughout the film. The score was actually decent and fitting when it was playing, which is much better than your typical overbearing and unfitting score you generally hear in B-grade films. The story was actually very clever and had some interesting bi-polar moments between the two leads. It had some good and surprising twists, with only a few plot and technical issues.

Although the 108 min runtime initially felt it'd be too long, the pacing was decent enough to fly by, especially with the twists and revelations throughout. You can tell thought went into the details of the screenplay. For his first ever writing credit, Mills did good, and both he and Elbert should be proud of their accomplishment.

Had this been the final cut from any somewhat-experienced filmmakers, it'd be lucky to get anything higher than a 4 from me. But considering this is a first attempt from two amateur filmmakers - and the fact you have to start somewhere, they deserve my 7/10 based on the merits of their experience and production abilities. For more clarification on how I review films, visit my IMDb user page to see more of my 1000+ reviews and read my reviewing criteria. Then support these two new and upcoming filmmakers by giving this film a chance. Bravo from me, sirs.