Movie review: Shredder

As you may or may not know, Mr. Mouse and I moved from Maine to Utah this fall, in large part because of the snow.  We're skiers, you see, and Utah claims to have "the greatest snow on earth."  Says so right on their license plates so it must be true.  It's been a slow start to the snow thus far but we have gone skiing together twice; the first time was at Brighton, a cute little ski resort at the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon.  The day we went there was decent snow, great views from the top, and about eight million snowboarders.  I joke, of course - it wasn't at all crowded - but truly, the snowboarders outnumbered the skiers about 3 to 1 which was a little disconcerting.  Frickin' knuckledraggers.

Actually, the 'boarders were quite well-behaved for their species and it was a very nice day on the slopes.  Still, when we got home and the movie in our mailbox was Shredder, a cheesy slasher in which a masked skier kills a bunch of snowboarders, Mr. Mouse acquiesced to watch it with me.  He may not like slasher flicks, but he likes snowboarders even less.

Here's the plot, what there was of it: a couple years ago, a ski resort tried to bar shredders from their slopes.  (The movie was filmed on location at Silver Mountain in Kellogg, Idaho; the real Silver Mountain does, in fact, allow snowboarders.)  Three local 'boarders decided to poach some trails and, in their typical out of control fashion, ended up running a little girl (a skier, of course) off the trail and into a tree.  Shortly thereafter, the snowboarders disappeared, never to be seen again, and the locals proclaimed the ski resort haunted.  A couple of years after the resort closed, a bunch of teenaged slasher fodder trespass for the weekend, looking to rip up some freshies all by themselves.  The "Evil Skier" finds them and typical slasher film rules apply as the stoners, sluts and morons all get picked off one by one.

This is not a good movie.  The writing and acting is really bad; the continuity between scenes is awful (Mr. Mouse and I had to keep up a running commentary to figure out what was going on); and the 'boarding isn't that exciting - Warren Miller, where are you when we need you?  Some of the kills were pretty good, if terribly fake: an icicle through the chest is clever; and one girl gets strangled when her scarf gets entangled in the chairlift ... but what's hysterical is that NO ONE NOTICES and she keeps spinning around and around as the chairlift keeps turning.  Mr. Mouse even figured out who the killer was way in advance - pretty good work for his first slasher flick.

One of the best things about Shredder is that it's short.  It's a brainless slasher that is certainly entertaining enough (Mr. Mouse, who has fallen asleep during far better films, actually stayed awake for the whole thing), recalling 1980s slashers in its foolishness.  You could do worse - although not a whole lot worse - but if you're a skier looking for some virtual payback on the 'boarder who ran over your ski tails in the lift lines, this silly movie fits the bill.