COLD PREY (2006) - the ski horror genre finally incorporates the foreign film genre

I guess I’m backing into a ski horror degree. I’ve already reviewed the likes of Iced, Blood Tracks, Satan’s Blade, and Frozen, and I’ve also seen Shredder, and now I’m reviewing Cold Prey. Once I catch up with Cold Prey 2, I’ll finally have my MFA in ski horror studies. I say “backing in” because I have absolutely no interest in skiing. I tried skiiing once, fell over, and promptly gave up. I have tried many similar activities (skateboarding, surfing, rollerskating, etc.) and have quickly given up under similar circumstances. If I try something that’s supposed to be fun, and instead of having fun I almost die, I quit and move on to something else. I know you’re not supposed to give up, but instead push on through difficult times, but I don’t think a pleasant activity should be a borderline life and death proposition. Thankfully, I’ve never been skydiving, as failure in that case means certain death.

So, I think my MFA thesis is either going to be about the fact that it’s easy to break a leg when skiing, which will incapacitate a group of teens (they can’t just leave their buddy to die), or maybe the cold isolation that comes with a snowy mountain mountain range. It’s basically a convenient setup for a horror film, and a pretty effective setting. Cold Prey employs both of these aspects in spades in order to weave a standard slasher tale. Iced would be the one ski horror film that actually cares about skiing and weaves it into the plot. Maybe I’ll just print out my review for Iced and hand it in for my final paper. I’ll probably have to edit out the naughty words and sexual references and replace them with film professor friendly words (like “diegesis” and “oeuvre”).

The one innovation that Cold Prey brings to the ski slasher is that it’s Norwegian. Granted, the actors and filmmakers have no choice in the matter, being from Norway, but I still give them credit anyway. However, there aren’t many things in the film to identify it as Norwegian, except for the fact that the teens in the film all speak Norwegian. That’s probably a good thing, as otherwise they wouldn’t be able to understand each other. However, you don’t really get to learn any exotic facts about the culture. For example, did you know that it snows so much in Norway that you legally have to eat at least one snow cone a day? Also, did you know that penguins automatically have the right of way when crossing the street? Or, that the national anthem is a black metal song? Just some fun facts. Also, Norway has a bunch of hot Norwegian chicks, many of which have tattoos...it’s true!

So, while it’s not “innovative” or “post-modern”, that’s not to its detriment. Most slashers post-Scream are “post-modern” to some degree, as far as I’m concerned. Even those modern slasher filmmakers who claim that they’re “going back to the roots of the genre”, or “kicking it old school”, usually end up with a “retro” version of the post-modern slasher. One modern film that managed to feel like a “classic slasher” without going retro is Wrong Turn, and Cold Prey comes across as the Scandinavian Wrong Turn, although not as good (keep in mind, I REALLY like Wrong Turn). A solid slasher relies on suspense, shock, and atmosphere, and needs to feature characters who aren’t total douchnozzles. Cold Prey manages to hit these bullet points, and also throws in a Turbonegro song on the soundtrack. Yeah, I know, foreigners make you uncomfortable, but I think you can make an exception here.

P.S. This film was written as part of the Final Girl Film Club. You can read Stacie's review here. She actually spends some time talking about the movie and explaining stuff.

ICED (1988) - putting bros before hoes on the ski slopes will make a dead homie go "ah, hell noes!"

VHS cover yo. Old Skool is the only way. Considering it was released direct to VHS and promptly forgotten, it's REALLY the only way.

Slightly cracked schlub Jeff invites a girl on a ski trip with his friends, but she starts getting frisky with one of the other dudes (not cool bro). Jeff naturally challenges him to a skiing duel, which he promptly loses, as he is, quite frankly, hot garbage on the slopes. His one true love goes off to have sex with his now arch nemesis, and Jeff uses this opportunity to get drunk and hit the slopes again (not for another duel, but rather for therapeutic purposes). He crashes head first into a rock, orange visor and all, (in a charming bit of slapstick) and is presumed dead.

Four years later, these same asshole friends (minus Jeff) get together for another skiing trip. Unfortunately for them, somebody wearing a cracked orange visor (for POV shots they just stick the visor on the camera lens like some retarded version of 3-D) is killing them off with skiing-related implements (like a snow plow, for example). This may tie it in to the earlier incident, considering Jeff’s orange visor was cracked in the skiing accident. But maybe I’m jumping to conclusions.

So, a skier loses his girl to his skiing buddy, which leads to a skiing duel, which he loses, which leads to him ski alone, which causes his supposed death, which leads to a series of ski related murders at a ski resort. While earlier films Blood Tracks and Satan’s Blade flirted with the idea of a ski slasher, Iced, the ne plus ultra of this sub sub-genre, really runs with the idea, right into a snow drift of cocaine, failing and achieving victory in equal measure.

As in Blood Frenzy (which is the trailer trash cousin to Iced), it is Wednesday from The Addams Family (Lisa Loring with giant, teased hair) that provides the thespian spark to keep the film afloat. Look no further than the scene where she is soaking in a hot tub, doggedly pursuing her goal of clean, soapy mammary glands, when our killer happens upon her. Suspense is ratcheted up a notch while the killer is presented with two obvious options:

1. Grab a bar of soap and assist Lisa with her scrubbing chore.
2. Take photographs and sell them on eBay.

Our killer, cracked psyche and all, goes off the charts, choosing none of the above and instead throwing a space heater into the tub, electrocuting poor Wednesday in her Sunday best.


Although I don’t want to give away the identity of the killer (honestly I don’t even remember who it was), I cannot sit idly by and not make mention of the superlative second twist ending. Flash forward five years. The naïve schmoe in us assumes all is well. The surviving couple leads an idyllic life, represented by their kids building a big snowman in the front yard. Lo and behold, the snowman starts to bleed from the eye socket. Suddenly, the killer skier (wearing skis, mind you), bursts out of the snowman, ready to unleash another scourge of ice cold unwholesomeness.

His psyche was so far gone that he could not even comprehend his own death during the first twist ending. Instead, he found the future couple’s home and hid underneath the front lawn for five years. He waited for a snowman to be built over top of where he lay, and then preceded to saw through the snowman so he could fit into its shell (without having it crumble or arising suspicion). When the moment was least expected, their lives most idyllic, the pain of past trauma seemingly erased, he leaps out, continuing his ski-implement assisted slaughter on a suburban street in broad daylight.

No jury would ever believe a story like that! It’s perfect! BWAAAA HAAA HAA HAA!!!

FROZEN (2010) - another reason not to go skiing, on top of the fact that I am horrible at skiing and am deathly afraid of dying in cold isolation

Most ski lifts are frankly rickety pieces of shit. They occasionally stop without warning, forcing people to wait in terror while a dude making minimum wage attempts to fix whatever part of the archaic belt and pulley system happens to be fucked up. Many of us in this post X-Games world have experienced this, but the results are usually more awkward and annoying than truly horrifying.

Frozen presents a unique spin on the phenomenon, as three young people are stuck on a ski lift because they were left behind after the ski resort was closed down, and not because the lift is shitty and archaic (although it is). Being stuck ANYWHERE after it closes must be scary as balls. Imagine being locked in a mall after closing and unable to escape. Even though there’s the promise of awesome fun, like being able to browse the Sharper Image store without being pressured by slimebag salesmen, or a free run at any unholy Cinnabon of your choice (maybe the Satanbon, or the 7 lb. Chernobylbon), you’re probably going to be scared shitless, trapped within such a hopeless consumer environ.

The film combines these two fears to create a smart horror gimmick. A couple of times a year, there’s a surprise hit horror movie that introduces a new slant on familiar material. You know, like “remember Saw? Well, this is just like Saw, except IT TAKES PLACE AT A CLOWN COLLEGE!” Or, “remember Scream? This is just like Scream EXCEPT IT TAKES PLACE AT A SCHOOL FOR ELVIS IMPERSONATORS!!!”. You get the idea. The best thing I can say about Frozen, the occasional wart notwithstanding, is that the combination of gimmicks presented are based in things that are actually frightening, as opposed to merely things that are gimmicky, if you follow.

For me personally, I think I would invite such gross negligence against my persons by a ski resort. After all, most of them are swimming in privileged white cash, like a Scrooge McDuck, and such a punitive oversight would lead to a multi-million dollar settlement and a ticket on the gravy train, where the stewardesses massage your feet for free. Of course, I would have to survive this endeavor, but, unlike the three young people featured in the film, I have seen the movie Tango and Cash. Therefore, I know to immediately take my belt off, flex my pecs a bit (for the ladies), and use the belt to slide down the cable to safety.

Hopefully this scene from Tango and Cash is realistic in it’s portrayal of belt and cable physics. Otherwise, I’m pretty much fucked, what with the freezing cold, and oncoming snow flurries, and the height between the lift and the ground, not to mention the supreme isolation. One character decides to jump down to safety, but unwisely tries to land on both legs, snapping them like twigs. Remember kids, if you have to fall from a high distance, use your shoulder to break the fall and try to roll into it. You’ll probably shatter your arm, but you can at least walk away to safety. There are also some wolves that pop in and start eating someone, which I find a bit unbelievable (a lupus ex machina, perhaps), but maybe these are really smart wolves that know that if they hang around a ski resort long enough, some tasty human will break a leg, and a 200 lb. dinner will, in effect, be served.

If all of this sounds grim, that is, three people hanging above a sisyphean mountain, unable to so much as roll a boulder as they rot through with frostbite, there is some actual levity to be had. Granted, most of the “funny” dialogue is not very funny, perhaps a realistic portrait of young people attempting to divert attention from the hopelessness of their situation with smart alecky asides. However, there is one genuinely funny joke uttered by a character, namely, “what did the 14 year old New Hampshire girl say to her dad when she lost virginity? Get off me, you’re crushing my Malboros.” Every great joke has a serious lesson, and the lesson here is…kids, please, don’t smoke. You’ll be ever consumed by tar and nicotine, to the point where you won’t even notice when your dad is raping you. Also, you’ll get cancer and die, and dying of cancer is even sadder than being forced to push a big rock up a mountain. At least with the latter you’re getting some exercise and fresh air.

P.S. Written as part of the final girl film club over at Final Girl. Here is a link, and from there you can click on Stacie's review of Frozen, where she will probably explain some details that I didn't bother with. Just a guess.

BLOOD TRACKS (1985) - a hair metal band and their groupies versus a family of cannibals, or, finally, a Swedish movie for the drunk and the stupid

Film, amongst many other miracles, allows us to empathize with other cultures. A family living in rural Sweden may indeed seem strange and foreign to a yankee pig. However, spending time with these people, we learn that they are, in fact, not that different from us. Money sure is tight, but luckily, they have each other to lean on, to help them get through any rough patches. They too have simple needs, and wants, like the desire to be loved and be accepted. And they, like us, have a drunken asshole of a father that beats the shit out of mommy. Well, the wife has had enough, and decides to take matters into her own hands. She knocks off the man of the house and flees with the kids to the comforting refuge of a deserted mine shaft that rests in the side of a snow covered mountain, where they spend the next forty years training themselves to become mongoloid retard killers.

Food sure is scarce during the winter months, but, luckily, culinary salvation comes screeching along in the form of Sweden’s foremost glam metal band, Easy Action, and their various hangers-on. Here they perform under the alias “Solid Gold” (presumably to prevent litigation from themselves), and sound a bit like a cross between Motley Crue and ABBA. They’re looking to invade the music scene outside of Stockholm, so they decide to shoot a video for the surefire smash single “Blood Tracks”. They head to a ski resort town with the usual crew, roadies, and “video dancers” (who conveniently double as groupies), and, quite surprisingly, the local community is overjoyed that these turkeys are invading their local town. I guess you take whatever role models you can get post Evel Kneivel.

The “dancer/model/whores” that accompany the group are an incredibly smoking conglomerate of tiger stripes, bustiers, careening eyeliner, studs, meshy lace, g-strings, teased hair, and stuff I don’t know the name of (the “musicians” are sort of like male versions of these girls). Admittedly, this attire is not particularly suitable for the snow covered mountains of Sweden. This is illustrated with dialogue like "I'm gonna freeze my tits off!”, revealing the sort of angst not hinted at since Persona.

Naturally, the first video shoot, on top of being totally uninspired, starts a fucking avalanche. Hopefully, this will eventually lead to a change in the resort’s safety policy (perhaps a sign stating - WARNING! LOUD, POINTLESS GUITAR SOLOS MAY RESULT IN YOUR FRIZZY, RUM SOAKED NOGGIN BEING PELTED WITH 12 TONS OF ICE… ASSHOLE!!!). This leads to an incredible scene in which several of our glam rockers rescue a naked guy and girl who were doing the backseat boogie in a car now buried by snow. Admittedly, I lost track of who was who during the scene. I guess when a Swedish hair metal rocker dude gets it on with a Swedish hair metal groupie, discerning who in the group has the penis is nigh impossible.

The video director keenly moves the shoot to the local abandoned mine shaft, and people start to fall prey to various booby traps. A couple of the mongoloids even make it up to their ski cabin, where they make quick work of their victims, dispatching them in vague frosty darkness. Some of the bodies get dragged back to the mine, hoarded for late night snacking (this was before Scandinavia was littered with 24-hour Taco Bells). In the end, two characters escape and are rescued by helicopter, which gently segues into an Easy Action power ballad. The sadness and despair of this bleak landscape (and the realization that becoming the next Poison is now out of the question) is exemplified by the lyric "I’m all on my own, far far away, in the middle of nowhere" (which is coincidently the entire plot for Bergman’s The Silence).

Despite the non-stop svenkyness on display, the movie tries to pass itself off as American, as the U.S.A. is apparently stuck in its ways, unable to accept the hair metal of other cultures. Fittingly, full blooded Swede Mats Helge directs under the pseudonym of “Mike Jackson”. Helge’s previous film was the semi-brilliant The Ninja Mission, a story about some ninjas teaming up with the CIA to stop evil Russians from securing nuclear weapons. It is truly The Wild Bunch of the Swedish ninja sub-genre (or maybe more like The Killer Elite of Swedish ninja movies, but still).

The tagline for Blood Tracks is “Terror on the Slopes!”, which would leave one to believe the movie is of the “ski slasher” genre. However, there is no actual skiing, but there indeed are some terrible goings on related to the surrounding slopes of the ski resort, so technically it isn’t false advertising. I’m sure these teased knuckleheads would have gotten around to some sort of skiing if the group didn’t encounter an unfortunate avalanche/asshole cannibal family combo. So yes, Blood Tracks does indeed qualify to be included (along with Iced and Satan’s Blade) in the borderline esteemed “ski slasher” sub-sub-genre, if for no better reason than I give less than a shit about skiing.

SATAN'S BLADE (1984) - the one sword pens don't wanna fuck wit, or a lost anti-classic of the ski slasher genre

I know what you’re thinking. The lord of darkness is tired of all these teens making out in the woods, and he’s the man that’s gonna do something about it. Taking the law into his own hands, he’s laying down his own brand of justice in the form of a vigilante spree carried out with the assistance of a giant fucking magical sword that shoots fireballs!

Well…no. Not exactly. Instead, Satan’s Blade is really the story of a group of schmoes that decide to go skiing. More to the point, they stand around in a cabin and deliver dialogue, and occasionally one of them says “time to hit the slopes!”. They head out the door, time passes, and they pop back in and say something to the effect of “boy, all that skiing sure was fun!”. So, the fact that all the skiing is off-screen really hurts it’s stature amongst it's ski slasher peers. While Iced is certainly the ne plus ultra entry in this category, at least in Blood Tracks we get a lot of snow, and an avalanche, and mountainous terrain, and even a few helicopter shots.

The story begins at the shittiest looking bank in the history of VHS cinema, where two perps force their way in after closing. One of them nabs the money, while the other uses a knife to rip off the blouse of one of two girls working there. You’d think they’d let the girls go after a little sexual assault, but no, they fill them with lead. These guys must be sleazy, immoral assholes, but no…they are in fact two sleazy lesbians! I guess they’re hoping that the bacon investigation will assume two men carried out the crime, that women are incapable of such female hating extracurriculars during a routine bank robbery.

Well, the drama doesn’t end there. They head to a ski resort cabin, and instead of splitting $50,000 three ways (there is also some dude who had the “inside info” about the tiny office space doubling as a bank), one lesbian kills the other with the intention of running away with all of the loot, realizing that $50 g’s is way better than $16,666 and sixty-seven cents. Unfortunately, someone carrying Satan’s blade makes a bloody mess of her. Two incompetent porkers stumble upon the scene, no doubt shocked that a simple lesbian getaway could turn into an orgy of kayo syrup.

Well, the next morning arrives, and a carload full of potential victims take a ski trip to the mountains. They are staying in the same cabin where the previous slaughter took place, so I guess the bacon investigation wrapped up the case and cleaned up the dead lesbian mess, all in a scant 12 hours or so…and to think I doubted their craft. Frankly, I’m stunned. Anyway, the lady that runs the "resort" mentions some crazy old legend about a mountain man who was tricked by Satan into stabbing people, and now lives in the lake. However, there’s no mention of the fact that lesbian bank robbers escape to the resort to stab each other. Our ski group hears about all this, along with another group of nitwits. They all agree to rent the cabins anyway, mostly because "it sounds exciting", all the murders and lakes and Satan and shit.

The two main couples are staying in one cabin, while five girls are staying in the cabin next door. There is also a "local old timer" about who believes that the mountain spirit is responsible for the murders from the night before. He stills decides to fish at the lake anyway. I guess ya gotta eat. To pass the time, the two married guys in the one cabin get unconvincingly drunk on good old Jack Daniels, while one of the girls next door has a nightmare about a masked man slicing up her friends. She wakes up and is startled by...a masked man! That is quite a coincidence! Actually, it’s just one of the drunkards playing a joke, the old “I’ll dress up as the dude in your dreams and sneak up on you because I’m an asshole with nothing better to do” routine.

So, our victims talk, go fishing, ski off screen, go out to eat, go out for walks, etc., until, finally, the killer shows up at the girly cabin and gets down to beeswax. He simultaneously drowns a girl in the sink while slitting her throat, a possible homage to Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace (and by homage, I mean pilfered whole hog). One girl, fresh out of the shower, gets the simultaneous stab in the back/smushed face on a mirror deal. Another gets stabbed in her rather large breast (the other one’s pretty big too), while the last girl gets repeatedly stabbed in the chest between the breasts (you gotta mix it up sometimes, keep things fresh).

The girls' bodies are found, and the two alpha-ish males pounce into action. They decide on a testosterone fueled plan: let’s get the fuck outta dodge. Unfortunately, one of the tires on the car has been slit. It’s that asshole Satan and his blade again, I’m sure. Somebody needs to teach that guy a lesson.

The best murder in the film occurs when the killer hurls the blade like a ninja right into someone's back (in a rather delayed edit). The victim tries to crawl across the snow to the highway (in a long master shot), but falls just short of being recognized by a passing vehicle, and finally, dies. She’s so close, yet so far away, as she crawls across dead, frozen branches, coldly ignored by the technological indifference of the outside world. This is as close to poetry as the movie achieves, but keep in mind, it’s kinda photographed like shit. If you were bored by that part, you’ll probably enjoy the next scene where a dude gets impaled and his liver flies out. Awesome.

After everyone except the final girl is dead, the killer snags the money from the bank robbery, which was hidden behind a vent this whole time (I guess that was some sloppy police work after all). The next morning, the final girl runs into the deputy's arms, who, being the ruthless bacon head he is, stabs her and admits to the killings. He was apparently possessed by the spirit of the mountain man, and also admits to wanting a little cash to play with. She tries to get away, heading back into the cabin and, for the second time, runs upstairs and hides underneath the bed. It worked the first time, but, unfortunately, you go to the well once too often, you’re going to get stabbed repeatedly.

Well, the devil possessed pork chop hurls the dagger into the lake in sort of a dumbass reversal of Excalibur. He washes the blood off his hands in the river, and I guess we’re supposed to reflect on the deputy’s moral responsibility, and conclude that he’s innocent, a poor public servant made to kill by the overwhelming power of Beelzebub and his pesky rapier. I say hang ‘em both. Assholes. The mountain man in the lake continues the Excalibur homage by hurling the knife out of the water and into a tree. Actually, its footage repeated from the beginning of the film, only tinted red this time. Some schmuck then wanders by and sees the knife, and we get the title card "The Legend Continues!". Sweet! Only…it didn’t. No financier could come up with the 17,000 dollars needed to produce a sequel. Sucks for you. For all of us really.

relevant footage begins at 5:58