User reviews

I'm surprised by the low score and poor reviews for this as I thought it was rather good. It is is very much of its era, and speaks to middle-class anxieties, with strange goings-on at an expensive country spa retreat for the rich and lonely.

There are lots of elements here creating a tense and intriguing drama: the masseur who finds he is increasingly cold and makes a desperate plea for help to get away before being silenced (reminiscent of the recent hit horror 'Get Out'); the heavy sexual overtones of both homosexuality and incest; the mysterious "vines" that never bear fruit nor die; the even more mysterious ice house that seems to hold a clue but that we somehow know should never be entered...

The audience is made suspicious of the brother and sister owners early on, but an explanation of what they are doing, how and why is not given until much later, and wisely never logically explained. Rather, images are left to linger whilst the increasing futility of the lamb-to-the-slaughter lead character settles in your gut. This is very much a mood piece and I found it extremely creepy right until the end.

A middle-aged customer discovers the sinister secret of a health resort situated in the remote English countryside. Last and oddest of the (original) series, too obscure and mannered for its own good but still managing a reasonable sense of dread throughout. In fact, what we have here are a curiously terrified masseur who, upon confiding to the hero that he intends to leave, promptly disappears; the siblings who run the spa harbor an unhealthy affection for each other and make no bones about it; our hero is somehow attracted to the titular building via the peculiar scent of a nearby vine; the Turkish bath is peopled by a sinister bunch of malevolent elderly gentlemen. Although our inquisitive hero does venture into the ice house, naturally all evidence of his discovery is concealed when the owners are confronted by it. The film joins a small band of contemporaneous films – like Arthur Hiller's THE HOSPITAL (1971), Alain Jessua's DOCTOR IN THE NUDE (1973), HORROR HOSPITAL, (1973), Michael Crichton's COMA (1978), Lindsay Anderson's BRITANNIA HOSPITAL (1982), etc. – that casts a suspicious look at the professional Health sector.

The last in the series of BBC Ghost Stories For Christmas (8 adaptations shown every year from 1971 to 1978) Shown Christmas 1978. It is a very low key end to this series and not at all frightening in the traditional sense of the word, its more of haunting mood piece. This and the previous Stigma saw the productions place themselves in modern settings , far removed from the previous M R James and Dickens adaptations. The story concerns a health spa visited by Paul played by John Stride , strange incidents occur with members of staff whom Paul notices are all icy cold to the touch. The Brother and sister owners seem otherwordly , as do the residents, and they have a strange relationship with two vines. The owners take an unnatural interest in him and the story evades explanation for many of the minor occurrences. Much is left to the audience to make up their own minds. A strange story which needs repeated viewing to appreciate, but it has only been shown once and chances of repeats are fading with every passing year.

Recently divorced, Paul visits a health spa for a break, the establishment is run by strange brother and sister Clovis and Jessica. Paul befriends a friendly masseuse, who later Vanishes, Paul is convinced he's spotted a body in their Ice House.

There is only Ice in The Ice House....

I can't lie, I didn't care for Stigma, but The Ice House on the other hand, manages to add a creepy and unsettling atmosphere in a modern setting.

The final installment of the original series, and it's a fine offering, The Ice House is subtle in all aspects, everything is implied and inferred, there is an unsettling horror vibe running through it, there is a implied degree of incest, and of course there's a subtle attraction between Clovis and Paul, not something many shows in 1979 would have been bold enough to portray.

I'm not sure I'll put it up there with The Ash Tree or The Signalman, but The Ice House is better than the rather low score here would suggest.

John Stride was rather good I thought, as were Elizabeth Romilly and George Burridge.

Not one I watch on a regular basis, but enjoyable nonetheless, a decent end to the original series.

7/10.

What kills this stone dead from the outset is the preposterous dialogue, which would have sounded stilted in 1800, let alone the 1970s. This is compounded by the performances of the two actors who are stuck with the unenviable task of somehow embodying the human forms of the sickly-perfumed and apparently immortal flowers that bloom on the eponymous structure's roof. They are both dreadful, especially Geoffrey Burridge, whose stab at creepy other-worldliness simply comes across as sneery and slinkily camp.

Poor John Stride, who could really act and is given the role we are supposed to relate to as an unwitting interloper, is unfortunately lumbered with exactly the same type of fustian claptrap dialogue as the two weird siblings, whereas it would have made much more dramatic sense for him to have spoken plainly and unaffectedly in order to emphasise the contrast between real people and unnaturally animated plants. But no, he's stuck with the same archaising, speech-patterns that isn't so much spoken as sing-song chanted, both in slow motion and inverted commas.

In short, dreadful, and not worth your - or anyone else's - time, even given its mercifully brief duration (35': and still it feels like hours).

Paul (John Stride) is recently divorced and treats himself to a country retreat run by a brother and sister team of Clovis and Jessica.

Both give Paul some special attention as he is the most recent guest. Paul is also attracted to the strong aroma of some unusual flowers by the ice house.

A masseuse at the spa complains of having cool hands and he later suddenly disappears.

The story is heavy on symbolism about nature. Clovis and Jessica tell Paul that the plants are brother and sister, so they do not cross pollinate, they just survive.

Later you see Clovis and Jessica embracing each other. Locals from the village will not come to the hotel, they are church going folks.

Eventually Paul is attracted by the secrets of the Ice House.

This is another modern set chiller that could had been better realised for the screen.

A lonely guest at an isolated health resort grows increasingly disturbed under the care of the oddly behaved sibling owners.

Weird tale that creates creepy atmosphere and plays out with no sense of needing to explain itself. The dialogue is over formal - with one error of grammar that took me out of it - and more distracting than effective.

Still, the parts are well played. Pace is just right, music effective, and there's a lovely shot of the three walking the river bank hand in hand.

I think you see quite a bit of this from Brit TV of the late '60s and '70s - the country house as the scene of middle class nightmares. This one has a homosexual undertone, with the image of the trumpet flowers on the window being "in your face" - so take it in a Freudian sense, if you like.

Like Stigma, this is another 'Ghost Story for Christmas' segment which was based on an original story and set in contemporary times. Unlike Stigma, its only sporadically effective and doesn't have too good of a reputation. Set at a health spa situated in a remote country manor, there are a number of mysterious disappearances. Could they be connected to the ice house of the title, situated in the grounds of the estate? What do you reckon?

I would dearly like to tell you what this is about.

But I haven't a clue.

The only entry in the Ghost Story For Christmas series not directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark. Not that there is a noticeable stylistic change.

The dialogue is delivered in a style which you will find either enigmatic or irritatingly mannered. There is some obligatory sexual perversity which is de rigueur in seventies schlock.

It is set in a mysterious spa for the wealthy and unattached, where the staff are cold in more than demeanour.

Although the series were billed as Ghost Stories, they were basically horror. This lacks any great frisson. But it is different.

A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Ice House (1978) is the final installment of the British BBC anthology series that aired annually from 1971 to 1978 and is currently available on Shudder. The storyline follows a man recovering from a divorce who retreats to a remote home/spa, hoping to relax and regain his mental focus. However, the locals prove to be unsettling, and a mysterious ice house on the property raises questions about its true purpose.

Directed by Derek Lister (Out on the Floor), the film stars John Stride (Juggernaut), Elizabeth Romilly (Hennessy), Geoffrey Burridge (An American Werewolf in London), and Gladys Spencer (Doctor Who).

This entry does an excellent job of using sets, backdrops, and camera angles to create a mysterious and foreboding atmosphere that lingers throughout. The interactions with the locals heighten the tension, balancing the protagonist's curiosity with a growing sense of doom that keeps you eager to uncover the truth. While some of the acting is overdone, it's not enough to detract from the experience. The background music effectively builds intensity, enhancing the film's eerie tone. The ending is appropriately creepy, though it left me wishing for a bit more resolution.

Overall, The Ice House delivers a compelling buildup and intriguing circumstances, making it a worthwhile entry in the A Ghost Story for Christmas series. I'd rate it 6/10.

Going through the 'Ghost Stories For Christmas' box set, it's actually surprising to realise the bad outweigh the good by far, and this is one of, if not the, weakest.

As with a lot of these, not much really happens, and whilst some can rely on atmosphere, this one doesn't even have that.

I have never seen so many knowing, conspiratorial glances packed into 35 minutes. This episode of the BBC Ghost Story series is written and directed with an absolute lack subtlety, nor does it follow any internal logic or consistency. Rubbish.

Let's not kid ourselves here. 'The Ice House' is absolute gibberish, a programme that some viewers will say was chilling, thoughtful and thought provoking. They are of course kidding themselves as this is by and large a bunch of tripe trying far too hard to be different. This is my take on it.

The spa is like a place to go to die and then reappear as a living ghost. To do this you have to enter an ice house and be encased in ice. That is it in a nutshell. There is incest and very odd characters but overall this is a plie of tripe dressed up as a ghost story. Oh yes, there is a bizarre ivy plant that is somehow linked to this tosh. Give it a miss.

I am generally good with symbolism as long as it has meaning and isn't just pretentious. The Ice House seems to be weird for weird's sake. Maybe it's someone's dream they turned into a short film, sort of a pre-Lynchian weird fest but this clip doesn't make sense, to a point that I wonder if this is the last episode of A Ghost Story for Christmas, because it outright killed the series.

A lovely and charming woman in her late 20s or 30s along with her irritatingly snide, rich boy brother of a similar age run a spa retreat together in the English country side. Fair enough. A recently divorced middle aged man is their guest.

But brother and sister both speak in an odd, hypnotic manner as though they're from a different time period, or like English isn't their first language and they're from Eastern Europe saying words in the wrong order. They've also got some weird smelly flowers that suggest some sort of magical power over the siblings.

I won't ruin the entire episode but there are more questions than answers by the end.. I am not ashamed to admit that I do not "get it" at all.

Excellent, just excellent, with the British touch and the best one, including mystery, and creepy elements. I guess only the British can give us such stuff, that's their speciality. This series should have been a bit longer, not one hundred episodes, because the quality would have been lost, but maybe twenty episodes. So, in this very story, the main character is the atmosphere, spooky, eerie, fantasy atmosphere. I was amused when the gay character spoke of the Village people, supposed speaking of the nearest village folks - but of course really meaning the famous Gay musical group...Awesome ending.