Today on TV: Atmospheric, intense mysterious horror with an “Oppenheimer” star in a hopeless situation

The Icy Death scenario could have easily become an effective episode of The X-Files, or perhaps more likely The Twilight Zone. Do you like scary movies that show more psychological, atmospheric horror than bloody, brutal horror? Then the 2007 film, made with a very sparse cast and in only a few locations, might be interesting for you.

“The Icy Death” airs today, February 17, 2024 at 11:25 PM on ZDFneo. There will be a repeat that same evening at 2:35 am. Alternatively, you can watch the FSK-16 title for free for a while after the first broadcast in the ZDFmediathek. However, due to the age restriction, this is only possible from 10pm – unless you register there and go through the age confirmation process.

Blu-ray and DVD are currently only available in this country as antiquarian copies or as copies Import in English*. Alternatively, you can stream the film in German dub as paid video-on-demand from providers such as AppleTV, MagentaTV, GooglePlay or Amazon Prime Video:

The leading roles as nameless fellow students are played by Emily Blunt, who recently appeared in our cinemas with ‘Oppenheimer’, from the horror hits ‘A Quiet Place’, and Ashton Holmes. Many of you may know the New Yorker from “A History Of Violence” or the World War II miniseries “The Pacific.” The duo also stars busy character actors Martin Donovan from “Weeds” and Ned Bellamy (“Being John Malkovich”).

“The Icy Death” on ZDFneo: that’s the story

After the last lecture before the Christmas holidays, a young student (Blunt) wants to visit her parents, who live a few hundred kilometers away. However, because the bus is too expensive for her, she looks for a ride on the university notice board and apparently gets lucky.

When she gets into the car with a fellow student (Holmes) unknown to her at the agreed time, she immediately has a bad feeling. The car is a pile of scrap metal whose windows can’t be closed properly despite the snow and subzero temperatures, and the young man somehow comes across as creepy. She increasingly gets the feeling that he only arranged his own trip in such a way that he could take her with him.

However, things really get scary when he turns onto a deserted side road into the woods for a supposed shortcut. After a near miss on the icy road, the duo is left stranded in their disabled car. And it gets even worse: when it gets dark, the two suddenly see creepy figures running past the car…

Prominent financiers

Megastar George Clooney and director virtuoso Steven Soderbergh apparently felt a lot of potential in the horror story. With their joint production company Section Eight (“Ocean’s 11-13”, “A Scanner Darkly”, “So Far From Heaven”), they co-financed the shoot as executive producers. “The Icy Death” was directed by Soderbergh’s longtime assistant director Gregory Jacobs, who also directed “Magic Mike XXL” a few years later.

In the positive FILMSTARTS review, Björn Helbig gives it three stars and especially praises the visual execution, including the great camera work of Dan Laustsen (“Crimson Peak”, “John Wick 2-4”). He makes an interesting comparison with the Stephen King adaptation ‘Room 1408′. At the end of his review, our author comes to this conclusion: “’The Icy Death’ doesn’t reinvent the genre of creepy or scary movies, but it breathes a bit of fresh, cold breath into it. Small shortcomings do not exactly spoil the overall impression of the technically well-made film.”

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