5/5 Lock your doors
  by T (California)
Terrifying film that mixes the clostraphoic feel of THE DECENT with the fear factor of "Dawn of the Dead". You won't want to watch this one alone. Spent most of the night checking my windows and doors to ensure they were locked. Made my cats stay inside the rest of the night. I kept dreaming the Ice Queen was waiting for me in my driveway, next to a snow drift. The only other film that gave me nightmares after seeing it was "Jaws". This film does for snow boarding what "Jaws" did for swimming. Not for the faint of heart. The Ice Queen moves in such a terrifying way that "28 Days Later" looks like a high school production of "Pippin" next to this film.

5/5 Quite possibly the greatest motion picture ever made.
  by Sean L. (Twin Peaks, USA)
Casablanca. Citizen Kane. The Godfather. Yes, we can all agree these are three of the great films of American cinema, but they all hold one glaring flaw in common. They are not Ice Queen.

From the beginning of auteur Neil Kinsella's 92-minute epic treatise on the place of frozen antiquities of the past in our present-day, fast-paced culture, we are thrown into one of the greatest action sequences ever printed onto celluloid. The sequence, of course, is a harrowing chase which results in the titular "queen", played with zeal by Ami Veevers, being stolen by rogue mercenaries. With a nod to Huston's timeless classic, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the rogues turn on each other, with the Ice Queen being taken out of the control of all parties. Kinsella seems to be suggesting the material riches inherent in this valuable find are outweighed by the mental fatigue of having such a treasure in your possession.

From this, we are thrust into the world of Johnny, the film's protagonist, played with zeal by Harmon Walsh. We can relate to this "everyman" from the moment we meet him, where he shows up late to his typical dead-end job: setting off avalanches intentionally with a grenade launcher to prevent "real" avalanches from burying a nearby ski lodge. In a downright Bergmanesque move, Kinsella made the bold decision to make Johnny's love interests the mirror reflections of each other, suggesting that there is innate chaos in the world that only an Ice Queen's presence can correct.

To give away how these two incredibly different parties come into conflict would be artistic treason of the highest form, but needless to say, as in all the great stories of our time, the forces of good and evil clash in a breathless adventure right out of the bible. Kinsella even finds time to inject winning humor into his masterwork, with memorable plays on the word "snowflake" to suggest that Johnny is both a "flake" and launches granades at the "snow".

A great man once told me that when ending an essay on another's great work, it is best to pay homage to that work with a quote from the artist responsible. Baring that in mind, there is nothing I could expunge from the deepest depths of my beating heart, that could better sum up my appreciation for this masterstroke of contemporary cinema better than what has already been said in the film itself. I will leave you now, with a line from the moral center of the film, Dr. Goddard, played with zeal by Daniel Hall Kuhn.

Dr. Goddard: "Like cats in the woods, can so sound like human babies crying."

3/5 It's a Cult Classic and I'm in it!
  by John Romeo
This is a cheesy, schlocky, wonderfully campy bad horror flick. I was lucky enough to be in this classic (Uncle Ed). tHe Edgewood crew and Dave G and Neil were great. The rest of the cast were fun. Harmon is the Man. Let's do Ice Queen 2 The Bitch is Back.

1/5 A cherry Icee is more fun
  by Nathan Christian (New Stanton, PA USA)
The only redeeming value is the Pamela Anderson look alike. Her implants have to be the perkiest two things this side of the Swiss Alps.
A movie loaded with loop holes and bad acting, it is propelled by it's dull awfulness. Only the pamela type girl has any acting sense.

2/5 Please Don't Shoot The Writer or Not This One.
  by David R. Williams
As much as it pains me to reveal the truth, I wrote the original script for Ice Queen. Not much remains. Actually, only the opening scene where the military convoy gets attacked and the concept of the airplane crashing into a mountain side and causing an avalanche to cover the ski resort are mine. The rest, blame the producer and director.

This film started life as "Avalanche Run" which was a sort of Romeo and Juliet on skis story. Two rival gangs, the poor but proud locals and the rich, snotty guests, face off over the love of a local girl who found fame in the big city. There were three (or was that four) production companies involved. Somewhere along the line one of the suits got the idea that the film needed a virus. So that's where the convoy and plane crash came in as a group of...I wasn't allowed to call them terrorists....steal an experimental virus, crash into the lodge, and so we get that as the ticking time bomb. The rival gangs must work together to escape before the crushing weight of the snow brings down the lodge on their heads and crushes the vials of virus, releasing it and wiping out every living thing for miles around. Then, apparently 2 weeks prior to production, another suit said that either the film got a monster or they were pulling out. Apparently the producer and director, rather than contacting me, put their own writing skills (sic) to use and rewrote 95% of my script. The result...well, read the reviews.

Oh, and for a look at what happens when a script of mine gets produced right - look for Prison of the Psychotic Damned, coming October 2006.