Horror Movie Review: Iced (1988)

Part slasher horror, part cheesy soap-opera, Iced doesn’t seem to know quite what it wants to be and that muddled thinking comes through strongly on the screen. However, that doesn’t stop it being entertaining.

Directed by Jeff Kwitny, Iced stars Debra De Liso, Doug Stevenson, Elizabeth Gorcey, Ron Kologie, Joseph Alan Johnson (who also wrote the screenplay), and Lisa Loring. The first part of the movie surrounds a group of friends hanging out a ski-resort. One in particular, Jeff, is not having a good time. Seeing as the girl he likes, Trina has been ‘stolen’ by Cory.

Furious with both (he’s an entitled prick), he goes for an angry late-night ski. You know what they say about skiing, right? Don’t ski angry and Jeff is raging, resulting in him having an accident and dying.

Or so it seems.

Five years later and the same group of friends are reuniting having been invited to a brand-new resort as part of a hard-sell to hopefully get them to invest. Some of the group haven’t seen each other since the accident so the break away, regardless of the companies’ ulterior motive, seems like a good idea.

It’s not though, as there’s a killer on the loose and they are targeting the group. A killer that sports a snowsuit and ski mask, the exact one that Jeff was wearing when he died.

Has he returned from the grave for revenge?

It’s a familiar sounding plot that had been done to death even back in 1988 and Iced doesn’t even try to vary it up. It’s slasher trash where dumb victims are hunted by a mysterious villain leading to a twist reveal that most can see coming a mile away. Yet it has a charm that aficionados of 80’s horror will thoroughly enjoy. Especially when the killing starts.

Around that though? It’s a bit of a struggle as the characters are walking clichés and the actors portraying them, barely trying. For some reason, Iced gets frozen in place as we spend way too much time looking at their relationships without actually getting detail that could flesh them out. This is the parts of the film that feels like a soap opera, especially with the 80s visuals, the location and music. Albeit a bit more on the adult side of things.

Iced is mostly about sex, drugs, and pick-up lines. You better not mind seeing the naked body (both male and female) as this group are happy to strip off and roll around on a bed constantly. That might sound like fun, but this is supposed to be a horror movie and for large swathes of the film, there really isn’t that much horror.

How about the killer reveal? Is it satisfying? Absolutely not and their motivations are paper thin.

Still, regardless of all that, it’s such a campy affair that it almost becomes lovable. Maybe even a contender for a ‘so bad it’s good’ tag.