I.C.U. (2009)...and I wish I didn't

I.C.U. is an Australian horror/thriller import focusing on voyeurism and murder seen from the perspective of personal hand-held and closed-circuit security cameras. The film's description sounded so promising but it never comes close to meeting the premise's potential.

The children of a recently divorced cop and their friend spy, or snoop, on residents of an adjoining high rise complex using binoculars and a video camera. Soon the innocence of spying on beautiful, half naked women turns deadly when they view what appears to be a woman's murder. They inform their father, who in turn confronts the would-be suspect, but somehow he is able to prove his innocence. Then the killer flips the script by spying back on the teens and make them his next targets.



More than 85% of the film is made up of useless diatribe between the teens inter-cut with brief torture and murder scenes from the mysterious killer. And that is a major problem with this film. The failure of a legitimate creepiness factor or sense of fear. The film is slowly paced, using a whole lot of nothing to get to the meat and potatoes.

Besides the aforementioned quick vignettes of people getting abused and slaughtered, nothing of significance to the story actually happens until it's almost over. We are given a subplot involving the emotional strain between the kids' separated mother and father, with the father established as a hard ass who does not really have the best relationship with them. For a thriller or even horror film, the scares are never there and the film becomes a clock watching exercise as you try to get through it.



The coup de grace is the twist ending, which is too coincidental to be considered believable even for this film, that ultimately falls flat. Then the audience is delivered a double twist to the ending which is absolutely even more absurd and laughable than the original twist. It doesn't even benefit from the Usual Suspect-type montage showing the audience clues (that are completely forced) to why the film ends the way it does therefore making the last two minutes groan-worthy.



One final issue is the soundtrack, which is a cross between industrial music and the Chemical Brothers circa 1996. Maybe it is a cultural thing, but the music makes you think that you time-traveled back to the last decade when this type of music is blaring through nauseating first person scenes. That being said, the techno-driven music sounds like it would fit better into a flick like Run Lola Run as opposed to this type of film. The music builds too much energy instead of building tension. And tension is sorely missed as I.C.U. is about as terrifying and suspenseful as an episode of Mad TV.



As previously stated, this film had an interesting premise that failed to deliver. There's too much pointless babble that feels like over 45 minutes of filler, there are not enough murders, the music has too much octane to build any type of suspense, the camerawork is beyond unwatchable even for a first-person perspective feature, and the double twist ending is silly. The only positive factor is the casting choices. The performances are quite good, even from the younger and inexperienced cast members. Female lead Margot Robbins is major eye candy and a cameo by director Aash Aaron is very well done. Unfortunately, the acting is the only diamond in the rough.



Not recommended even if you catch it on cable. Nothing is more painful than trashing a low budget film, but it can't be helped when the execution is disjointed and the film itself is simply bad. Nothing to see here...move along I.C.U., but I wish I didn't.