Bikini Girls on Ice is Exactly What the Name Says
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Bikini Girls on Ice has bikini girls, and they are put on ice. Beyond that, it’s a by-the-book slasher that has bright points but stumbles in its final third.
Written by James “Crypticpsych” Lasome
December 30, 2010
Release: August 14, 2009 (Fright Night Film Festival)
Directed by: Geoff Klein
Written by: Geoff Klein and Jeff Ross
Starring:
Cindel Chartrand as Jenna
Danielle Doetsch as Sam
William Jarand as Moe
Christina Sciortino as Lena
Ivan Peric as Tommy
Meet Moe (Jarand), your friendly neighborhood homicidal mechanic. Moe works in an old, near-abandoned service station in the middle of nowhere, murdering anyone who snoops around a little too much and dumping their bodies in ice. Today, a women’s college soccer team is planning to have a car wash to raise money for the team. The gang gets together, led by Freshman star Jenna (Chartrand), her roommate Sam (Doetsch), and the meaner star of the team Lena (Sciortino); and heads out in a bus to where they want to set up their car wash. Along the way, the bus breaks down. The group pulls over and decides they want to set up at the old service station instead while the driver, Tommy (Peric), works on the engine. All the while, Moe watches from the dark, waiting to introduce the ladies to his array of hardware.
To borrow from Zombie Master’s review of Zombie Strippers, with a name like Bikini Girls on Ice, what did you expect? There are many women in bikinis. They wash a car for about a minute or so. Some of the actresses who play them have exactly the roles you’d think they’d have on their resumes. Pretty much all the women in the movie also spend the majority of the movie in their bikinis. If, however, you’re seeing this hoping for something sexy, think again. Outside of the carwash scene, some minor implied lesbianism, and one small sex scene, this movie defies expectation by NOT focusing on the sex angle.
It is, however, a slasher at its core. If you made a list of all the stereotypes you’d expect in a slasher, it’d be filled 30 minutes in. You’ve got your obvious final girl, your mildly whorish best friend, your bitchy mean antagonist, your full-blown slutty character, your bisexual dumb blonde, your cannon fodder, your male love interest, your lightly annoying comic relief… it even has its own awesome spin on the “Crazy Ralph” doomsayer character (in some ways better than Friday the 13th’s). It also plays in the Friday the 13th/Halloween slasher playbook in that our hulking, greasy-haired Moe never speaks, he only grunts and screams. Jarand’s Moe, in fact, is one of the movie’s best parts. He’s resourceful, almost supernaturally unkillable, and has a rather amusing tendency to not just “kill” people; he will beat them to holy screaming hell far more times than is necessary (which sometimes isn’t even enough!).
Geoff Klein and his crew should be commended for making a well-shot movie that looks far better than the film probably cost. The acting is fairly decent with the major characters turning in mostly excellent performances and the rest being, at worst, mediocre. Again, though, this is Bikini Girls on Ice. Critiquing acting is not necessarily job one. The movie also has great atmosphere through lighting and creepy sets that combine to turn a relatively small environment into one that feels much larger, helping the film as a whole.
There are, however, some things that I can’t let even a movie called Bikini Girls on Ice go on. For one, the script seems unsure whether it wants to be a straight slasher or a self-aware one. Jenna has a few eerily prescient lines in terms of the latter and the film seems to knowingly introduce about 5 to 6 extra bikini girls just for the car wash scene, only to have them basically just leave the movie a few minutes later without lines. However, the characters are exactly who you’d expect; the order in which they die, at first, is exactly what you expect (though I do commend the film for switching it up a little as it went along). The movie also doesn’t go out of its way to explain Moe’s motives (he’s apparently just nuts). Both of these angles are great ways to make this film, but sticking with one would’ve probably made a stronger one.
Also, the pacing of Bikini Girls on Ice is off. The first two-thirds of the movie work well as Moe “ices” about half the cast in fairly quick succession. Then, the movie slows down a fair amount and Moe becomes a little stalkery and suddenly can’t seem to finish the job. This, coupled with how our final girl freaks out too much as the ending rolls on and how her acting gets dragged down hard by her co-star seems to make the last 30 minutes not as enjoyable as the beginning.
Bikini Girls on Ice is a slasher that doesn’t set out to be more than its title or genre suggests. That’s not a bad thing, mind you, given the movie’s shot great, has some good performances, and has a few quick bursts of originality. It isn’t perfect, but the experience overall is exactly what an indie slasher fan is paying for.
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