Ice Queen (2005) — Triskaidekafiles

ICE QUEEN

WRITERS: Neil Kinsella, Peter Beckwith, and David Williams

DIRECTOR: Neil Kinsella

STARRING: Ami Veevers-Chorlton as the Ice Queen
Harmon Walsh as Johnny
Noelle Reno as Tori
Jennifer Hill as Elaine
Daniel Hall Kuhn as Dr. Goddard
Peter Wyndorf as Devlin
Demone Gore as Jessie
John Romeo as Ed
Tara Walden as Audrey

QUICK CUT: As a Vermont ski resort closes for the season, Johnny tries to get back his girlfriend’s rent money from the girl he met the night before.

THE MORGUE

Johnny - An employee at a ski resort, charged with taking care of snow buildup before it becomes an avalanche. He means well, but his mouth often gets him in trouble.

Tori - Johnny’s girlfriend, who also works at the resort, owned by her uncle Ed. She loves Johnny, but is getting tired of his antics and irresponsibility.

Elaine - A woman Johnny meets at a club one night, and he goes home with after too much to drink. She comes off as not the sharpest ski on the slopes, but she is strong willed and determined.

Ed - The owner of the resort, a kind man, and has a history of alcoholism, although he recently has stayed sober. He has a dog, Patches, that is always at his side.

More fun to reign in hell, and all that.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Merry Triskmas everyone! I hope everyone is staying warm, because things are about to get chilly. This year's late December review isn't exactly Christmas related, but I've done wintry creature features before, and Ice Queen is definitely in that vein.

And hey! It's even filmed in my home state, in some locations near me! Oh no, wait, this...oh this is from the same guys that brought us Time Chasers.

The movie opens up with a military convoy transporting some hazardous material. They get interrupted when a rival faction sends a helicopter in to strike the convoy. Amidst all the chaos, the other group acquires whatever is being transported, and it is soon revealed to be a woman in a drum filled with goo.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but it's time to move your ice queen to the fridge.

She is removed from the canister, cleaned up, dressed and prepped, and as will be shortly explained, this is all to slowly adjust her temperature, like you're doing a slow thaw, or slowly warming your hands up, to minimize the pain.

But while that's going on, it's time to meet our actual main characters, at the Killington ski resort, which I can almost see from my house!

Our main character, Johnny, and his two friends work on the mountain to take care of potential snow shelves that could become avalanches, and take them out safely, before they become a problem for the resort.

After a long day, they're hanging out at the local club when Johnny catches the eye of a young woman about to enter a wet t-shirt contest. And instantly this movie feels so dated.

Johnny ends up getting absolutely wasted, going home with the girl, and waking up the next morning with no memory of what he did after leaving the club. The bad news is, he's already seeing a girl. The worse news is, she gave him her rent money to take care of, and he gave it to his one night stand, before she disappeared.

Meanwhile, back in the main plot, the woman is being prepped for transport, and after the pilot briefs the guy from earlier, he stabs the pilot in the back. One less person to pay!

Doctor Goddard gives a whole bunch of technobabble exposition, and I only care somewhat more than the "pilot" does. But of most importance, her temperature operates basically in reverse of normal humans, causing most of the plot.

Johnny shows up to work, and his boss springs a surprise safety inspection on the team. She has a perfect safety record, and after a bad encounter with Johnny running his mouth, she has it out for him,

While the boys take care of some snow, the frosted flight is hitting some turbulence when the "pilot" hears how much money he could make selling the specimen. He threatens Goddard with a gun to exit the plane right there and go splat on the Vermont landscape.

Fortunately, the ice queen wakes up, slices off the guy's hand, and freezes his innards. Unfortunately, the plane now is sans pilot, crashes into Killington, which causes an actual avalanche that buries the resort.

Before it can get buried though, Johnny meets up with his girlfriend, but she's in the middle of a job interview with the girl he went home with last night. Awwwwkward.

Oh, and they make sure to point out that all the furniture in the office is nailed down because "people kept trying to steal it" and awkwardly justify a cheap gag coming up later.

Finally, the avalanche hits, taking out models all over the resort. Also, some guy gets hit with the snow, because you gotta always have one guy get hit, and he no joke lets out the infamous Howard Dean scream. Well, it's Vermont, I guess I'll allow it. We don't have a ton of in jokes.

The plane slides all the way down the mountain with the avalanche it caused, crashing into the resort. While Goddard tries to regain consciousness, the ice queen disembarks and goes exploring.

One of Johnny's friends have made it down the mountain, and is the first to find the Ice Queen. And she makes some tasty freeze dried dude.

Johnny and the girls wake up, and take stock of their situation, and oh no! The avalanche flipped over the entire room! Good thing we understand it's flipped over, by the furniture nailed down and hanging in the air!

He gives Tori his coat, and she finds the note Elaine left him, mentioning the “loan”. Johnny is having a no good very bad day, and the avalanche just might be the least of his problems.

The ladies get into a classic Dynasty style catfight, and roll around in the snow. Which reminds me, Elaine is not at all dressed for this situation.

Meanwhile, Ed, the resort's owner, who was outside at the time, finally finds a phone amidst the wreckage. He calls emergency services, and they just laugh it all off. Ed has a history of alcoholism, and even though he's been sober for some time, they still treat him like this. And just...wow, rude.

Like...even if he is a drunk, to just be like, "LOL whatever dude! Avalanche! Who cares if there might be hundreds of dead bodies??"

Johnny heads off to see if he can find any survivors, and leaves the girls to have a chat. Elaine tells her side of the story, and we find out it was all a ruse by Devlin to try and get Johnny in trouble. And, apparently, nothing happened, and he could not stop talking about how much he loves his girlfriend. He got so drunk he just passed out. She even pinkie swears this is all true.

And real ones know, you do not mess with a pinkie swear.

When Johnny returns, he says he can't seem to find anyone else, so Doctor Goddard shows up like he was summoned. The small group heads to another part of the lodge to continue their search.

Elsewhere in this mess, Jessie is following some noises, and comes face to face with the Ice Queen. She attacks him, but Jessie fights back, and escapes.

The creature gets knocked back into an electric hand dryer, and the heat from that takes the queen out of commission for a few minutes.

I love the concession to an avalanche having happened, by just piling a teeny bit of snow in the corner.

Jessie finds the rest of the group, and tries to explain what happened. The doctor interrogates him, trying to gain information on his specimen. While he's trying not to give too much away, the rest are getting very suspicious.

Elaine has had enough with this nonsense and stomps off. Jessie goes to try and bring her back, and they eventually start making out.

Which is the perfect time for the ice queen to show up and finish what she started with Jessie.

Elaine runs away as the Ice Queen drags Jessie down into a hole, and she runs into Audrey, Johnny’s boss. She tries to keep Elaine calm, and get her back to the group.

The group reunites, and Johnny gets them moving again, because it's better than just sitting around waiting to die. Either by the elements or the creature.

He leads them to a safe, if cold, spot, and then Johnny heads back out to check again for survivors or supplies.

And that's when I realise the poor dude has three blonde women in various stages of angry at him. Four if you count Frosty.

Welcome to the first annual meeting of the We Hate Johnny Club.

Johnny rants to himself, and eventually runs into the Ice Queen. Because she sees Johnny as frozen thanks to the avalanche, she actually think he's a potential mate. Great, just when things can't get any worse. You’ve seen Species, now get ready for Freezecies

Since she doesn't attack, Johnny heads back to the group, and they all decide to relocate to another room that is hopefully warmer.

Meanwhile, the Ice Queen makes her way to the kitchen, and grabs a pot of coffee. The heat disgusts her, or it might just be because it was the pot of decaf.

She finds milk and ice ream that is much more to her liking and temperature, and makes such a commotion that it draws the group to her. They think it's a rescue party, but get the party crasher instead.

Elaine gets attacked, before the creature runs back off. The doctor and Audrey look for stuff to patch her back up, and the others stay behind.

Unfortunately, Audrey and the doc run into the Ice Queen, and Audrey gets into a short lived standoff with her.

Twenty minutes into Netflix and chill and he gives you this look.

Audrey is about to knife the creature, when Goddard intervenes, and the Ice Queen finishes the job.

Tori remembers some air vents in the attic, and after trying to save Audrey and failing, everyone runs in that direction. Unfortunately, the love triangle is cut short when the Ice Queen finishes what she started with Elaine.

Finally the two survivors get to the attic, and out through the air vents, reunited with Ed. The creature isn't far behind, but shockingly, Johnny has a plan.

He uses his cold body to lure the creature over to the hot tub, which Ed got started when he turned on the outside lights as night fell, and they both go into the hot water. This all proves too much for the creature, and she boils until her meat falls off the bone like a Christmas stew.

Having survived all that, Johnny decides to end the movie by asking Tori to marry him. As the impending couple walk off into the sunrise, Goddard pops back up to collect a sample from the hot tub, for a sequel that never came.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It definitely has the look of early 2000s straight to video, but it’s not the worst.

Audio: Same level as the video

Sound Bite: “There are species out there who can change gender, or eat their own young!" "Yeah. They're called liberals."

Body Count: A lot of anonymous death, as I’m sure, with an avalanche and the military strike, but beyond that, a decent amount.

1 - Three minutes into the movie, and the guy escorting the ice queen gets killed in the ambush.

There are likely other deaths here, what with all the gunfire and explosions, but nothing clear, so I'll just leave it at the one.

2 - The Ice Queen slices off the pilot's hand, and rips his insides out, and freezes him
3 - Poor guy gets covered in the avalanche, and lets out the Howard Dean scream
4 - Devlin is next to get freeze dried
5 - Ed finds a man dead in the snow.
6 - And then Jesse gets splattered across the snow
7 - The Ice Queen frosts Audrey next
8 - Elaine gets frozen next
9 - Johnny drags the ice queen into the hot tub.

Best Corpse: Elaine being disarmed is definitely memorable.

Blood Type - C+: A fair amount of blood, but nothing too gory, since this isn’t aiming for that. A decent job on the monster makeup, though.

Sex Appeal: A few brief moments with Elaine

Drink Up! Every time the Ice Queen sees in Predator vision.

Movie Review: This is a fairly basic, but effective, creature feature. The creature design is solid, and acting isn’t half bad, and they have enough plots going on that you at least don’t get bored. But there’s really not much to say about this one. The production values aren’t great, the sets look like sets, and there is an overall low budget feel to it. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially around here. This and “Demon Under Glass” from a month ago both have that same early 2000s straight to video look to them that sets the tone and expectations. This is a very okay movie,with a few decent moments of humour, a few good effects,and it’s an okay popcorn movie. Not very memorable, but good cheesy fun for a Saturday night. Three out of five crashed planes.

Entertainment Value: There is a certain delight to be found in seeing just how bad Johnny’s day can get, and how all the women he’s disappointed in the span of 24 hours are treating him. I haven’t said much about Goddard, but he gives an unhinged, obsessive performance once he is reunited with the Ice Queen, and their scene in the dining hall is a hoot as they both scream and growl at each other in the weirdest mating ritual I’ve seen. And personally, much like with Time Chasers, this movie has a bit more amusement for me, because it was filmed in essentially my backyard. Not a great movie, but entertaining enough. Two out of five chairlifts.