Review: Iced (1988)

Slasher films in the late 80s were almost a rarity already. The VHS-business however was booming and everyone wanted to cash in on horror movies or movies in general. Many movies were released directly on VHS and so practically anyone could made a low-budget movie and release it on home-video, Jeff Kwitny is one of these. He only had two or three other releases besides his film-debut Iced and none of them is known anywhere. The few slasher movies that came out in these years who are more or less known until today though were quite good, scoring with the adding of some black comedy or some extreme gore. Two good examples that come to mind immediately might be Sleepaway Camp 2 or Intruder. Iced however lacks of gore and comedy but lets get into detail.

It all starts in the mountains where some friends are skiing - of course - two friends Jeff and Cory are doing a ski race in the snow. Cory wins the race and receives Jeff's girlfriend Trina. The next scene is Jeff speaking to himself at first sight - spoiler alert - later proved to be wrong, however it's the first confusing and somehow silly scene. Trina and Cory are making out in the meanwhile. When Jeff returns to the hotel and catches them he goes mad. To relieve tension he goes skiing and then somehow manages to crash off a cliff and land on some rocks, if you now expect some gore you'll be dissappointed.

In fact you'll be dissappointed for the next hour because that's how long it takes for the first death scene. Four years later Trina and Cory return to the same resort (it's a different one in the movie though) now followed by some friends called Carl, Diane, Jeannette and John. Throughout this hour there are some cheesy and fake talking scenes and stuff but nothing really happens. Then one of the kids is run over by some snow-truck, a silly 'I rather crawl backwards than just stand up and run away' then the scene is cut-off and you only see some blood on the snow and some of his clothes. You obviously are kind of pissed now because you have waited for about an hour and what you get is some off-screen blood.

What really had some potential was the icepick death scene in the last minutes of the film but it is again cocked up by a annyoing off-screen cut. Also the score could have been helpful for the atmosphere of the film but they really fucked that up as well, sometimes it builds up and then immediately fades out again or it begins way too late or is simply unfitting. Another very funny thing are the pauses between the con-versations of the girls, sometimes up to three seconds long. Maybe refreshing for some of the viewer are the numerous nudity scenes in Iced, at least something worth mentioning.

Iced is surprisingly well known among slasher fans and this is definitely not because of the plot. What makes this somehow unique is the actual snow thematic. You can't name many slasher films at first sight who play in the snow. There are a few christmas-related slasher movies and also Curtains from 1983 has some crazy chasing scenes on ice but you really have to dig deep to find something similar to Iced. One fact that makes me somehow sad is how good you could have made this one with a decent budget, some serious plot and a lot more gore. The actual gore scenes or the scenes that really have potential are off-screen. I just re-commend it to you if you have too much time to waste or if you're just a sucker for bad trash cinema. However it's absolutely no loss if you miss this one.