Customer Reviews

Ice House [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Murder mystery revolving around an abusive husband who disappears ten years earlier. An obsessed detective is convinved the wife did it but cannot prove it without the body...which was never found. An unidentifable corpse is found buried on the premises in an overgrown ice house. A BBC who-dun-it. Well done with a good twist.

'The Ice House' is a truly remarkable venture, both in terms of plot and of characterization.
As far as the slowly unfolding plot is concerned, the film is second to hardly any of the British (TV) mysteries of past years such as 'Inspector Morse', 'Silent Witness', 'Inspector Lynley' etc.
The main characters are portrayed in a convincing yet cinematically appropriate way. Right from the very beginning the film psychologically probes the dark sides of human nature keeping the viewer in tight suspense right to the very end. It's not the ice house of the title that chill is emanated from - it's the abyss of the human soul !
Definitely worth seeing.

Again, the BBC is asleep at the wheel! Now that Daniel Craig is such a big star, don't you think that others just might be interested in seeing this great role for him? Hello!
The Ice House is a superior mystery, with great interactions between intricate characters. Yes, I was kept guessing through the whole story. Great British acting. Let's get this released on DVD, PLEASE!

THIS HAPPENS TO BE ONE OF MY FAVORITE MYSTERIES.....VERY WELL DONE...I HAVE THE VHS VERSION AND WOULD LOVE TO HAVE A DVD OF THE STORY...UNFORTUNATELY, I HAVE AS OF YET TO SEE IT OFFERED IN THAT FORM. WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF IT IS OFFERED IN THAT FORMAT FOR U.S. VIEWING.

I first saw this wonderful collaboration between the BBC and WGBH public television in Boston many years ago. I have been waiting for PBS to rebroadcast it as the best Mystery offering ever, but to no avail.

The story involves the lives of three women living on an isolated estate in a village in England. When a body is discovered on the premises, they are forced to call the police and begin what is for them, a horrifying recurrance of a previous nightmare. Violence and sex are very present but not explicit on screen due to intelligent filming techniques.

This was my first exposure to Daniel Craig's strong presence as an actor, and I was very impressed. All members of the cast are outstanding in their roles and recognizable to any anglophile. It was also my first exposure to Minette Walters, a British author with a wonderful sense of suspense, mystery and human emotion. I have since read all of her books, with mixed reviews. I watched it again and was not disappointed. I will, no doubt watch it again in a year or so.

I found some of the adaptations of Minette Walter's other books (such as The Scupltress) to be too creepy, so I avoided this one the first time around. However, somewhere I heard that this one was not so creepy or gruesome, and so I tracked down a copy. (I got a region 2 DVD, which took some trouble to watch.)

It turns to be a great old-fashioned mystery drama - everyone deceiving everyone else, even the cops. Lots of ironic twists and turns. Everything ties together, although I think it would have been better if they'd given it at least one more half hour, because some turns happen too fast. (Also, it's pretty clear they edited, since there are references in dialog at the end that imply a couple of loose ends had more to them.)

The whole cast does a great job, although some of the minor characters are annoying because they only have one-note and it's a shrill one. (The hateful villagers in particular get tiring.)

I do advise watching this before reading the book, if possible, simply because you don't know what's left out, so it's easier to enjoy the book after the movie than the other way around.

I bought The Ice House immediately after watching it on the ABC for the first time. I am very impressed with all actors invloved and would have mentioned my views earlier but I couldn't find a website until this morning. The Ice House was very successful and drew myself and many friends to the tv screens. I would especially like to credit Minette for her excellent plot and character development, which created tense situations very well. I would also like to say a terrific well done to Daniel Craig and his ever-so-slightly-disgusting portrayal of McLoughlin. Being the first time I have seen you act, I was very impressed. Altogether i am really glad someone has made a decent thriller with actors who are actually believable and realistic. Good on you all. I also await the new show The Echo which has just been advertised here.Thanks for this site. From Sara.

I first watched this film with my brother when it first aired on PBS. Good Lord, that long ago really?!

He wasn't into Mystery! mysteries as much as I was. Still, he sat through the entire thing with me after flipping through our other three channels looking for something interesting on a Sunday evening. At one point I looked over at him and said, "You can change it... if you want to...." (and not really meaning it). He looked back and shook his head, frowning as if I was off my rocker. So we watched it. A week later, for the second half, we looked at each other and said, "Mystery!" and bolted for the basement to watch the remainder.

Oh, review the film! Right, I'm on it. I remember being quite thrilled with such a wonderfully different storyline. Of course at the time (seven, eight years ago now) I wasn't interested in acting abilities or such, but I was and still am a writer and I knew this was Good Stuff. Having recently viewed it, I know the acting was superb and the writing Good Stuff.

Years passed. I fondly remembered a story that involved a body found in an ice house, and three women who were all enigma and no answers, especially as to the disappearance of one of the women's husband a decade before. One day, I said to my brother, "Hey, what was the name of that one movie, with the three women, and the body found in the ice house?"

"The Ice House."

"Right." I considered buying it, but at the time it was twenty-eight dollars not including shipping, and I was cheapo. I bought it about a week ago, at a reduced price of eighteen or something, with shipping twenty-three. Not such savings, but I made the delight of watching the film that much sweeter because I could now only barely remember details about it. One thing I knew - I knew it was Good Stuff.

Too bad it's not on DVD.

You find that everyone has their own motive and there is lots of tension in this Susan Minot novel adaptation. I loved the book and the movie wasn't disappointing. The old manor house and the characters are the stuff of a great British mystery.