Every so often a motion picture touches your heart and enriches your life. This is the case with this humble science fiction film and the magnificent story of human survival it tells. Beautifully directed and with a script that sensitively observes humanity at its most vulnerable, a powerful saga of endurance and courage unfolds before a rapt audience. One can not help but be moved and perhaps even changed by what we witness. With a superb cast and stunning special effects, Ice Quake is so much more than a sci-fi extravaganza. It is an intimate tale of everyday people struggling for existence upon a landscape of overwhelming brutality, before a formless and unforgiving act of nature. In the end, it is one of the finest stories of mankind being tested to its limits and ultimately its triumph.

Ice Quake is another SyFy Channel film so as always keep expectations low.Two geologists (one dressed as Santa) investigate tremors on a mountain when a deep crack appears with some shimmering effects indicating some kind of gas escaping which freezes one of the geologist jumping over the crack. The mountain is releasing sub zero methane gas via earthquakes which causes avalanches placing nearby towns in danger.Brendan Fehr is up in the mountains with his family looking for Christmas trees but ends up battling for survival as ice geysers spew and quakes occur unleashing avalanches leading him to deal with various problems. Victor Garber lends respectability as the Colonel trying to locate Fehr.Its a rather poor film, quickly shot, below average special effects and some bad science.

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!?

This contains spoilers.ICE QUAKE is NOT a movie for flashlight geeks. I am not sure if I have ever seen such poor and unrealistic use and handling of flashlights in a TV show or movie anywhere close to as bad as the flashlight handling in ICE QUAKE. The actors "aimed" the flashlights at least 90º away from where any normal person would find it helpful. Often in rescue movies actors are seen yelling at distant search planes or at helicopters thundering over head. This silly behavior is seen often in movies and TV shows. Sadly, ICE QUAKE finds a new level of unrealistic behavior.Even when the actors are waving the lights around with spastic thrashing arm movements, the beams of light do not once even accidentally point in a useful direction. Perhaps cast and crew were all suffering from 100% snow blindness during the filming of this movie???