Sangre en la nieve

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-

Sigh … I suppose I'll never be able to claim that I've seen all 80's slashers ever made, because here's yet another one I never even heard or read about before today. Oh well, "Iced" certainly isn't a great loss and not at all worth tracking down unless you're an avid fan of the decade and/or the sub genre. The story takes place in a skiing resort – duh – where the usual crowd of teenage stereotypes gathered together for a holiday of fun, until of course a homicidal maniac decides to pick them off one by one. I wouldn't exactly call this original, but since most 80's slashers took place either on high school grounds or in sunny summer camps, I'll reward this movie with half a point extra for its setting. A couple years ago during a previous ski trip in the same resort, the popular girl of the bunch had to choose between two admirers. Her resolute choice for the hunky guy drove the loser to commit suicide and now it looks like he's back from the dead with a vengeance. I know, that's not very groundbreaking either. Like sadly too often the case in this sort of movies, the murders only begin to occur in the third act of the film. The first hour only features false scares, juvenile pranks, dull flashbacks and some welcome nudity. Lisa Loring plays one of the girls who gets topless quite frequently. I mainly know her as little Wednesday from the original "The Addams Family", so I hope it doesn't sound too perverted to mention her naked chest as one of the film's only highlights.

A lot of people presume that the golden age of slasher movie ended in 1986. Admittedly censorship was beginning to have it's own devastating effect on the once thriving theme. But if truth be known, in 1988 the love it or leave it category was still alive and thriving. In that year alone, we had the impressive entries: Maniac Cop Intruder, Evil Dead Trap and they were only the really good ones! Perhaps less successful, but still as alluring was the rarely themed attempt - Iced! I say ‘rarely themed' because, as the name incautiously describes it's set on a snowy ski result with a killer that doesn't don a clown or hockey mask, but instead an orange visor and a snow suit! The only other movie I can think of that has almost exactly the same setting is Shredder, the recently released ski and slash film that's almost an unofficial remake! Totally coincidental, of course!

Six teenagers are mysteriously invited to a mountainous snow bound resort for a weekend of sex, drugs and cheesiness! It's the first time that they've been skiing since their friend, well; acquaintance was killed in an accident four years earlier. Jeff died after he had sworn vengeance on Cory for stealing the woman he had eyes for, Trina. Even before they all arrive, a psycho wearing the snowsuit and ski mask that Jeff died in viciously murders one of them. Hmmm! We've already learned that he was an eccentric character, he spent time in an asylum and he's partial to throwing violent bouts if things don't exactly go his way. Now it looks as if he's come back from the dead to make good on his last words to those who tormented him in life!

Iced sits comfortably along with Evil Laugh, Fatal Pulse, Killer Workout et al, as yet another ‘horror' movie that'll bring a smile to your lips more often than it'll ever send a shiver up your spine! Thankfully, they usually always manage to redeem their utter incompetence with the unmistakeable comedy of outright ineptness! Joseph Alan Johnson, the ‘star' of the 1986 bore-a-thon Berserker penned the story and he also plays a key role. Quite why anyone would let him loose in front of a camera again is a mystery; he must've struck some kind of deal when he sold his screenplay! But his lack of any talent fits in nicely with the rest of the brain-starved cast that also includes slasher reprobates Debra Deliso (Slumber Party Massacre) and Lisa Loring (Blood Frenzy - the 1987 one, not Mario Bava's)!

Jeff Kwitny doesn't make any use of the potentially intriguing set locations, you'd think that he could have staged a few remarkable set pieces and made good use of the snow coated mountains. But he instead decides to kill off everyone in and around the cabin, but to be fair; some of the methods of murder are fairly unique. It's amusing, because I never thought that an icicle could be used as a murder weapon! Oh well, you learn something-new everyday, don't you!

The film's real merits lie in the total plot ineptness that can only be found to this standard in slasher movies from the eighties. First off isn't it just amazing how in four years, no-one's appearance has changed at all! Each character is inimitably cheesy; especially Carl who at one point pours out enough cocaine to sniff that even Tony Montana would question his nasal capacity! Eddie's car breaks down conveniently where the killer has a snowplough parked so that he can rearrange his body parts and they all must be stone deaf, because they never hear the dieing screams of their friends as they're massacred only a few yards away! As well as suffering from hearing difficulties, Trina is also particularly dumb. If the ‘victims' from Nail Gun Massacre took the biscuit for being a little slow off the mark, then she runs off with the whole packet. She finds Cory lying in the kitchen with a knife sticking out of his chest, he asks her to get some help and after the obligatory fumble for the keys to a car that wont start, she eventually decides to use the telephone (doh)! Instead of ringing the local law enforcement or a paramedic for her Husband who's probably bleeding to death, she calls Alex the resort manager that she shared dinner with the night before! Good thinking brains! When the killer is finally unmasked after a particularly leisurely paced showdown, his motives are thinner than Lisa Loring's ‘comeback' career… and just as baffling!

If you are one of those that's riding the eighties revival and your favourite song is still ‘it's the final countdown', then Iced will rock your world! It was released in the years when slasher directors no longer had gore to rely on to obscure their lack of talent, so instead they used lame nudity and – deliberately or not – unintentional humour. It shines only because it excels in being a woefully bad movie that thinks it's extremely good! I'm in my early twenties, but it makes me feel old when I have to say that they just don't make them like this anymore

Maybe it was the beer talking, but Iced was a perpetual favorite amongst my friends and I during our college days. A poorly-made skiing-themed slasher with virtually no gore, the film somehow managed to entertain time and time again.

From the Rockadiles t-shirt to Debra Deliso's workout using a rolling pin, this baby is is pure, unfettered bad fun. We've got the most painfully inept man on Earth trying to escape a snowplow. There's some hilariously unintentional homo-erotic moments between two male friends as they lie in the snow together. We've got piles of cocaine you could go sledding on, a killer who leaves messages in puffy paint, and gratuitous Wednesday Addams nudity.

The score, which I find myself humming at least a few times a year, is so bad, its great... and the ending? Wooo baby. If you haven't seen how this delicious piece of cheese ends, then you haven't seen jack.

Iced is a wonderful film. Sure, its wonderfully bad, but that won't stop be from loving every last moment of it.

Now where's my DVD?!

A group of friends accept an invite to stay as a ski lodge but there's a crazy skier out in the snow who is intent on killing them all, one by one. This late entry in the 1980's slasher cycle has bad acting, bad script, bad plot, bad fashions and bad kill scenes. Pretty much everything about Iced is bad, with the exception of the Utah, snow covered scenery and the plentiful sex and nudity. Most of the killings only take place in the last half hour. When the Final Girl realises that there's a killer outside instead of phoning the police she instead rings the chalet manager! Hilarious! Probably the only noteworthy thing here is Lisa Loring, of the original Addams Family, now all grown up and very naked. For me Iced is a difficult film to score. To be brutally honest it is terrible, deserving a 3/10 at best. However, I found it to be of the so bad it's good variety, this slice of cheese often had me laughing, hence my 6/10.