Rating: 
Summary: a supremely frustrating film
Review: WARNING SPOILERS AHEADEric Stanze's Ice From the Sun, an 8mm hybrid of the experimental (think Stan Brakhage) and horror core (think Leif Jonker's "DArkness") is an immensely frustrating moviegoing experience. I say this because Stanze clearly has talent. He has an excellent eye - many of the scenes in this bizarre film look very much like those old Nine Inch Nails videos.
He is also an excellent editor - the opening montage set to punk music is superb and weird. There are also some excellent set pieces within the film that are eye catching and imaginative - the girl who becomes a freak show exhibit, the shaky cam car chase, the worms in the stomach torture scene, the run-through-the-forest-of-radios scene. All these are superior. the problem is (and this is a BIG problem) the narrative is impossibly muddled. It is VERY hard to figure out just WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON or WHY WE SHOULD CARE. The film has some basic screenplay problems that needed to be solved before it was shot. The basic plot seems to be something about a magician and his assistant who is evil and six people who are zapped into an alternate reality. But all of this is very hard to discern.
I would definintely recommend this to anyone who has an interest in fringe cinema or horror core. Stanze is a talented artist (and I use the word "artist", not the word filmmaker) - a filmmaker in my opinion is a traffic cop - someone who doesn't write his own stuff and directs according to the whims of executives. Check it out. I do look forward to Stanze's upcoming films.
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