Bikini Girls on Ice (UK DVD)
Steve Barton
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Reviewed by Gareth Jones
Directed by Geoff Klein
Starring Suzi Lorraine, Kerri Taylor, Ivan Peric, Tarek Ghader
Distributed by Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment
You’ve seen it all before – a group of hot young nubile women stranded in a remote location, being picked off one by one by a mysterious killer. Here, a group of sorority sisters headed for a bikini car wash fundraiser find their bus broken down at a secluded, seemingly deserted, gas station. Deciding to begin their car washing activities with any passers-by while their vehicle is repaired, our band of beach bunnies and their male counterparts soon find themselves hunted by a maniac, dressed as a mechanic, with the particular fetish of placing their bodies in an ice bath and hanging the bikinis on his trophy wall.
Ridiculously simple plots such as this are a mainstay of the slasher subgenre. What makes it work (or, indeed, fail) is how each individual movie brings its own flavour and style to the proceedings. Bikini Girls on Ice presents next to nothing worthwhile of its own: No original ideas; flat, tensionless direction; acting that only occasionally exceeds high school drama class and, worst of all, a pathetic excuse for a killer.
Our murderer here utters nary a word throughout the entire film – rather, this hulking beast stomps around grunting, growling and snarling while sporting a greasy long hairdo that makes him look and sound like an angrier version of Fear Factory vocalist Burton C. Bell. Quite what his motives are, or why the hell he randomly puts bodies in a bath of ice is never hinted at in any way, shape, or form. There’s no reason to care why on Earth he’s keeping the bodies on ice. In fact, there simply doesn’t appear to be any reason, save to give the movie its eye-catching title and tagline.
Admittedly, director Geoff Klein does appear to have somewhat of a decent eye with the film looking much more visually accomplished than the vast majority of low-budget slasher flicks, but as mentioned, it’s almost entirely devoid of tension or real scares. Anyone looking for the exploitative good time that the title promises is also likely to be seriously disappointed, as Bikini Girls on Ice fails to deliver on the breasts ‘n blood front, too – we get one short topless scene and almost every single kill is presented off-screen. Our hulking idiot appears, growls, swings his hammer/axe/whatever at the off-screen victim, and blood splatters the general area. Whoopee.
Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment’s DVD release of Bikini Girls on Ice is perfectly fitting in both a visual and audible sense. It’s certainly one of the better looking recent straight-to-DVD slashers with its use of some great locations. Extras on the final release include deleted scenes, making of footage, a blooper reel, and a commentary. These were not included on the review copy, so have not been scored.
Bikini Girls on Ice is, in a nutshell, a basic and predictable piece of slasher fare that fails to present any originality or deliver consistently where it counts. If you’re a slasher devotee or completist you may find something to enjoy but for the majority, Bikini Girls on Ice will leave you cold.
1 1/2 out of 5
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