ICED (1989) **

A mentally unbalanced skier flips out when his girlfriend makes time with a hot shot competitor.  He gets so mad that he commits suicide by skiing off a mountain.  Four years later, the now married couple go on vacation to a ski lodge where they rent a time share with a group of friends.  They get worried when someone doesn’t show up, and as the group splits up, a killer wearing snow goggles picks them off one by one. 

Iced is a lukewarm skiing themed slasher that has found something of a cult following over the last couple of years.  That’s probably due to people being nostalgic about it from renting it back in the ‘80s.  If you’re like me and missed out on it back then, there’s honestly not a whole lot here to recommend.  It’s mostly dull for the first hour or so as the killer waits an exorbitant amount of time before he starts racking up bodies.  The murder sequences include death by snowplow, ski pole, icicle, hot tub electrocution, bear traps, and good old-fashioned stabbing.  Too bad just see the aftermath most of the time. The POV shots from inside the killer’s cracked snow goggles are pretty cool though. 

Debra (Dr. Caligari) De Liso makes for a solid Final Girl, all things considered.  You’ve got to respect any actress who spends much of the third act running around in the snow in her underwear.  I do have to take points off for the laughable scene where she discovers the bodies of her friends and calls not the police, but her time share representative!  What?  Did she think because her friends were slaughtered, he was going to give her a discounted rate?

The completely random and fairly graphic sex scenes help somewhat.  It’s also fun seeing little Wednesday Addams, Lisa Loring all grown up and playing the sexpot of the group.  She has a couple of nude scenes that are altogether ooky.  

Even with a handful of highlights, Iced is still bound to leave you cold. 

Director Jeff Kwitny made Beyond the Door 3 next. 

AKA:  Blizzard of Blood.