Wednesday, June 5, 2013

17 Epic Snowboard & Ski Slasher Movies

 
I'm from the Jaws generation, and I'm now forever cursed with an irrational fear of getting eaten to death by huge aquatic teeth missiles. As a result one of the things I've always really appreciated about snowboarding as opposed to surfing is the significantly lower risk of becoming a fish snack. Now either I'm not alone in my shark-based fear predicament, or someone who I've never met in my life really has it in for me, so severely that they have been studying my every move to find my single weakness and target that through the medium of a low-budget straight-to-video horror flick, because this summer sees the release of the almost entirely unanticipated movie Avalanche Sharks.

And Avalanche Sharks isn't the first horror movie to tackle the oddly specific niche of snowboarding and skiing. If you for some reason don't share my specific fear of sharks, maybe one of these other scenarios will do it for you...

1. Avalanche Sharks
After a horrific avalanche, the staff at Twin Pines Ski Resort starts to receive reports of missing people and creatures that move beneath the snow. As the body count piles up, the management tries to cover up the situation, which leads to disaster on their busiest day of the year: Bikini Snow Day.
Maybe I shouldn't be so worried about this after all. There's no chance I'd run into one of these suckers on Bikini Snow Day, I look crap in a bikini.
It was filmed in Mammoth, it's released in July and stars Brooke Hogan, Hulk Hogan's daughter, who also featured in an earlier movie from the same production company; Sand Sharks.

To give you an idea what to expect here's a trailer for that movie...

It gets a lowly rating of 2.7/10 rating on IMDB, just a tad better than their follow-up movie 2-Headed Shark Attack.


Weirdly this isn't the first snow shark movie, another one was released in 2011...
2. Snow Shark: Ancient Snow Beast
And with an IMDB rating of 1.9 and the garnering the critical review; "what a piece of crap", it's easily the worst movie on the list. Check out this thing of beauty....


3. Ice Spiders
"Eight Legged Freaks meeting Hot Dog: The Movie"
Two shit movies together, make one big turd.


4. Summit
That's enough big scary beasties for the moment, there are also some snowboarding and skiing slasher movies. This Kickstarter funded movie is going to be released in 2015.



5. Iced
Proving you don't need crowd-funding to fund a crappy ski-themed slasher movie, Iced was released in 1988.
Years ago, their dear friend was killed when he fell from a cliff while skiing for a love of a woman. Now, years later, they have all been invited to a remote ski resort by an unknown stranger. As they arrive, they begin to suspect something is not right... but by the time they realize, its far too late! Someone is stalking them, seeking revenge for a loss none of them understand... and by the time the sun rises on their desolate cabin, they'll all be ICED!
The full movie is here if you fancy working your way through it...


6. Shredder
It's the same movie again.


7. Cold Prey
Mirroring snowboarding, after the Americans invented it the Norwegians got involved and proved to be better at it. Cold Prey was released in 2006 and gets a very fair 6.3 IMDB score.
You can watch the full movie on You Tube here. They went on to produce two more, one in a hospital following directly on from the first movie and a prequel set in the 80s.


8. Class Trip
Sticking with the Euro theme, in 1998 the French got involved and produced this...

It is very French



9. Avalanche
If that was a little too art house for your tastes then here's some Hoff.
Duncan is a murderous thief. When he jumps out of his plane, it crashes into the Rockies and produces an avalanche. A quiet family trapped inside their house will rescue him. They will have to survive the disaster and the madman.
I've watched this one. Hasselhoff is the baddie. Spoiler alert: he's not a very good actor.


10. Winter Kill
A sniper is killing residents at a winter resort. Who will die next? And why?
This TV movie from way back in 1974 was the first ski resort slasher film and with an IMDB score of 7.4 it's easily the highest rating of any of these movies. It featured a young Nick Nolte and according to the reviews, "It is worth watching this movie just to see a man wearing an entire suit made of corduroy".


11. Scarce
SCARCE depicts the gruesome fate of three lost snowboarders trapped at an isolated forest cabin owned by two menacing locals who harvest human flesh. As the day of the slaughter nears, they attempt to escape barefoot through the frozen wilderness.
This trailer for the lowly 3.9 scoring Scarce is all red neck cannibalism I can be bothered to handle.


12. Frozen
Pretty poster by the very talented Kevin Tong
This has probably been the most commercially successful snowboard horror movie to date. Here are some interesting pieces of trivia from IMDB.
  • When the wolf takes down actor Shawn Ashmore, it is actually a boarder collie in that one shot. The German shepherd that was trained to do the stunt mysteriously died two nights before the scene was shot.
  • An audience member fainted at the film's first showing at the Sundance Film Festival (though this could be attributed to the festival's high altitude). 



13. Ice Queen
It's Species in a ski resort


14. Dead Snow
Two words: Nazi Zombies
It's another decent Norwegian one and there's a follow-up in production.



15. Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon
"It is one of the dumbest pieces of crap i've ever seen in my whole life" Darkside2003, IMDB reviewer.


16. Snowbeast
A Colorado ski resort is besieged by a sub-human beast that commits brutal murders on the slopes.
Another oldie. Back just after the release of Jaws this low-budget movie was churned out. The full movie of "the regrettable 1977 made-for-TV abomination, Snowbeast" as described by the fella that illustrated the poster above, is here.


And finally there's...
17. Snow Beast
A remake of the crappy 1977 movie starring him off of the Dukes of Hazard
While the research team is trying to find out why the lynx have disappeared, the local ranger ('Jason London' ) is searching for the answer to what is making tourist disappear; even if it the last thing he ever does... and it is.

So their you go, plenty of monsters and killers to select from, personally I think the most fearsome sight was watching the Hoff pretending to be a bloke called Duncan.


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2 comments:

  1. Frozen Nazi zombies, in fact. A class movie with added Norwegian Christmas jumper comedy value.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excellent though :)

    ReplyDelete

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