Thief's Monthly Movie Loot - 2024 Edition

That's how geologist Michael Webster (Brendan Fehr) describes this sudden threat to his superior (Victor Garber). Something that he had never seen before, probably like this SyFy film. Ice Quake follows Michael's attempts to survive this "ice quake", along with his family, while also trying to prevent a catastrophe on Earth.

For some morbid curiosity, I decided to put this on Tubi as I was doing some other thing, so I'll admit that my attention span wasn't 100% here. Anyway, there are some, uhh, expectations when tuning into an Asylum film or a SyFy original. You either expect something big and bold (like big creatures or big disasters), absurdly outlandish (like Lavantula or Santa Jaws), or a combination of both.

Unfortunately, Ice Quake offers none of that. The threat here is mostly presented as just cracks and crevices opening on the ground, and "eruptions of ice" coming out unexpectedly. Needless to say, it lacks that big scope of, say, a meteor or a big creature, or the absurdity of a fire tornado full of two-headed sharks.

What we get is this mostly dull survival journey of this family as they try to stay safe, followed by a race against time to blow some explosives that will somehow stop the methane flow from creating this "ice quakes"...? Yeah, whatever. The thing is that it lacks the tension and thrill to make us care about anything, especially since we know how it will all end.

If anything, even though most of the performances aren't very good, they're not downright awful. I do wonder what the hell is Victor Garber doing in this, but the main issue is with the bad script and the bad dialogue. The fact that some of the performances are subpar just adds to how bad it is. But again, is not necessarily that it's bad. It's just that it's boring and dull, and sometimes, that's worse.

Grade:

__________________

And the hits keep coming, so this was another month in which I didn't do my usual challenge. But still, these were my watches.

So this is my summary for SEPTEMBER 2024:

2020s films: The Beta Test, Rebel Ridge, Fall, Ice Quake
Films with the kids: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Despicable Me 4, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Short films: Sissy-Boy Slap-Party, Three Little Pigskins, The Leviathan, Thirty Leagues Under the Sea, New Desk, The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy, Krazy Kat Goes A-Wooing
Rewatches: Malice, Superman II
1950s sci-fi/creature films: The Monolith Monsters, Earth vs. The Flying Saucers
Vincent Price films: Shock, The Last Man on Earth
Other films: Stranger on the Third Floor, Rosewood, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Society



Not a particularly strong loot, but still a lot of fun watches. Rebel Ridge was easily my favorite first-time watch of September.

The weakest first-time watch was easily Ice Quake.

Has anybody seen the 2014 remake of this? Is it something worth checking out?