Iced

At a bustling, whitely glistering ski resort we are boisterously introduced to a gaudy gaggle of morally despicable, self-absorbed ski-headed skells making Alpine whoopee and these duplicitous degenerates denigrate one of their number Jeff until an altercation breaks out over the perceived proprietary rights of the uber blonde-headed schmoe bunny Trina (Debra DeLiso) until meat-faced Cory (Doug Stevenson) and the neurasthenic Jeff throws down and much like the similarly snow-coned 'The Chill Factor' they must race to save alpha male face and win the additional grace from the not-exactly fair maiden. This fatefully frosty contest proceeds with a weirdly realized downhill race with the net result being the loser Jeff endures great shame thereby losing his capricious girl, the scrappy race and, perhaps even his mind!

4 years later these snow-seeking simps converge for a weekend of wintry high junks at 'Snowy Peaks' where they plan to do the same tired shizz as before and not long into their chilly shenanigans the serious matter of stalk and slash begins in deadly earnest, except Jeff Kwitney's 'Iced' takes the singular approach of playing his delightfully absurd horror movie out like a Hallmark Christmas special, cannily replacing the saccharine sentimentality with righteous B-movie excess, his fabulously frost-bitten freak show serves up delightfully amateur hour 'acting', hilariously crass love scenes, perfectly malodorous dialogue which along with its plethora of ice-cool ski slope slayings and savage ski lodge stabbings unexpectedly coalesces into a delirious miasma of cruddy death-dealing delights!

Composer Dan Milner's score has a tasty Richard Band quality, boisterously exaggerating 'Iced's suitably hysterical climax. The film's winning lack of sophistication and soft-core slap n' tickle aesthetic merely increases its bizarrely compelling nature; it's not great cinema but readily satisfies baser instincts as a cheap and trashy grot-fest! There's also a fragrant campiness to the cod-ball chatter and 'eclectic' acting talent that not infrequently increases its entirely welcome comedic element, and the harder it tries to be a serious slasher, the more wildly successful it becomes as a 'so-bad-its-good' delight, and you've got a snowball in hell's chance of chilling out to anything remotely like it made today!

Seven yuppie friends are invited to the opening of a ski resort in northern Utah where, it turns out, a mysterious person is intent on killing them all. Could it be their jealous friend who died in a ski accident four years earlier?

"Iced" (1988) is a traditional slasher with the milieu of "Snowbeast" in the manner of "Satan's Blade" from the early 80s. Twenty-two years later, "Donner Pass" borrowed from these films for the best of the lot. If you like any of these flicks, "Iced" is worth checking despite being formulaic and strapped with some lousy music (not all of it, just bits). You can't beat the setting and, say what you will, it delivers the goods. As the story progresses, the characters are fleshed out.

Standing out in the feminine department is Lisa Loring, best known as Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family.

The flick runs 1 hour, 26 minutes, and was shot in north-central Utah with parts done in Big Cottonwood Canyon, which is a dozen miles east of Salt Lake City.

GRADE: B-

"Iced" focuses on a group of friends who reunite at a posh ski resort after their friend died in a skiing accident four years earlier. Naturally, more members of the group are destined to die.

This shot-on-video slasher flick directed by Jeff Kwitny ("Beyond the Door III") is a prime slice of late-'80s cheese picked off the video rental store shelf. If you know, you know. "Iced" is certainly not a good film, but it is a real low-budget charmer with its fair share of spilt blood.

The setup is banal and predictable (as is the case with most films of this ilk), but what "Iced" has going for it is a snowy atmosphere paired with dark cabin interiors, big hair (it was filmed in 1988, after all), and a fair amount of interpersonal drama between the group of friends that feels as though it could have been plucked from an episode of an '80s soap opera.

Obviously this will not appeal to all tastes, and the film does suffer from some choppy editing that really shows its budgetary restrictions. The performances are also shaky at best, but the ski-suited killer makes some menacing appearances throughout, and the despite the slow-burn nature of the first hour, things do ramp up into full-blown slasher territory in the last thirty minutes, when the bodies start to fall.

Ultimately, the reveal is predictable and the killer's logic stilted at best, but genre fans don't seek out these types of films for nuance. "Iced" is a delirious good time, and an amusing relic of its era. For a no-budget slasher, it stands as a decent shot-on-video facsimile of more polished films. 6/10.

A lot of fun take it for what it is a fun night in with some cool kills this is more than worth a watch, I have seen alot worse from more well known horror icons

There's something tremendously appealing to me about snowbound horror. Great white isolation, nature itself a menace in cold immensity, and of course the beauty of red blood on fleece white snow. Iced regrettably does next to nothing with its potential, but for the bad slasher aficionado it has its merits all the same. Its set up is promising, first shot a freeze frame of skier atop a mountain, stark image, arms outstretched, poles like chill antennae against the sky. Then we have a race, defeat, romantic rejection and rage. One poorly planned night skiing excursion later and there's the back story. Then its a case of various related parties heading up to the mountains to snag a free holiday out of a condo timeshare pitch, then accosted by a ski masked maniac. Its more or less an absolute textbook example of a bad slasher, nudity, very little gore (just a couple of workable gore shots here) and delicious slices of cheese. It works on vivid characters and amusing dialogue, managing a fair level of general amusement despite having little to offer for the most part. There's John, a doctor with an off key attitude and lovely heroine Trina. There's Carl, twitchy and sarcastic cokehead (scarfs up an impressive load of the stuff at one point) who serves up a fun dream sequence and wired paranoia. Best of all is Jeanette, essayed in lively fashion by Lisa Loring, giving her all for the piece like it counts for something, nicely sexual stuff (that's a carrot in your mouth, not a dick! !). Dialogue is for the most part pleasing, especially in a spell of bad date reminiscence (drive in tissue boob fiasco!) and the actors have good chemistry, there's a nice sense of disparate friends uniting and trying to make a holiday work. Things are regrettably a good deal too slow though, most of the deaths are crammed into the final block and the few sex scenes and occasional boobs don't quite hold the weight of maintaining interest, moreover the direction is generally style free (though director Jeff Kwitny did later make a rocking trashfest by the name of Death Train) and the plotting lacks suspense. Things do perk up fairly nicely in the final twenty minutes or so, with tension, fair kills and the odd giggle from continuity errors, culminating in one of the gnarliest lunatic freeze frame closers I've ever seen. Oh, and the music packs some nice daftoid tunage if memory serves. Little here to recommend to anyone that isn't already a devotee of crappy slashers, but to those that are this one is just about worth tapping for a one time watch.