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Codex Atanicus
Codex Atanicus is a three story anthology by Spanish director Carlos Atanes. Before watching the movie I never heard of the guy, but the introduction video on the DVD by one of his regular actresses Arantxa Peña made me realize that I'm in for a hell of a ride. Experimental, bizarre, sick, strange - these are some of the words that describe the stories contained in Codex Atanicus. The anthology is opened by a 20 minute short from 1995 called Metaminds & Metabodies. I am really not into this kind of experimental videos, but I will try to summarize. It opens with a girl singing in the club. Everything looks ultra underground and the girl is connected with some wires to the walls. Strange people are watching her...
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Movie Review: Ice from the Sun

Story
A being known as "The Presence" brings the souls of some troubled teens to his feet to play a game of death with each one of them to see who has what it takes to win.

Comments
Holy hell, where do I start? Ok well rather than starting out with the story like I normally do let me go ahead and tell you this... The story is hard to follow, and that's not saying it's bad, its just hard to follow at times.

Now what is known is that "The Presence" is a being that's an enemy of both heaven and hell who likes to torment and kill for his own amusement. With that said he brings in a group of teenagers to his realm for a little game of survival, one at a time in different situations. As he has his fun tormenting and killing the teens were introduced to Alison, a suicide victim that the angels of heaven and hell recruit to track down and stop "The Presence”. As her journey draws her closer to stopping him he draws a higher body count. Only Alison can stop this wicked being from his murderous spree.

Ice from the Sun Ice from the Sun


This movie is shot very much like a music video, yet shot on film, which gives it a great look and feel that a lot of independent horror films don't come close to. Each scene is another jump into Eric Stanze's warped reality, which I personally admire. Within the movie there's a group of rings hanging from what appears to be ribbon and with each death another ring is gone, which is great symbolism in it's own right. Now there's a few of the cast members from Savage Harvest in "Ice” but this time it appears that they have kicked it in high gear and do a lot better in their acting, which I liked being that it was one of my main issues with Savage Harvest. Toss in some good gore scenes and lighting effects and a pretty solid script and you have this surreal journey into the mind of a madman, that being Eric Stanze. You can tell that Stanze is growing as a director, producer, and writer with this film because it's quite a step up since he had directed Savage Harvest only 5 years prior. You can see that some of the shots he did in Savage Harvest are inspiration to his shots in Ice too which is cool.

For all you twisted horror film fans you'll love this movie, especially if your cool with it being low budget but greatly compromised. Stanze shows that it doesn't matter how low the budget can be, that you can still make a great movie that people will respect and want to watch more than once.

Final Comments
I definitely have to say out of all the movies I've seen by Eric Stanze this one is one of my favorites, it's so surreal and wicked yet at the same time so casual and almost heartwarming. Definitely check it out.

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Ice from the Sun

ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 1999
DIRECTOR: Eric Stanze
WRITING CREDITS: Eric Stanze
GENRE: Horror, Fantasy
CAST: D.J. Vivona, Ramona Midgett, Angela Zimmerly
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 120 min

RATING: 7/10

Ice from the Sun Website/IMDB Click here
Ice from the Sun Trailer Click here

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