Okay, I'll admit it. Like a dirty magazine stuffed underneath your mattress when you were a youngster, I have a secret. I just can't get enough of ski-based T&A comedies. I have no idea why, but nothing pleases me more than popping in Hot Dog... The Movie during a lazy afternoon and thrilling to "what the f*ck is Chinese downhill?" and former Playboy Playmate Shannon Tweed's naked body. I have a weird fixation on seeing Ski Patrol released onto DVD. I even liked Out Cold. That's why, once I saw the cheapie Canadian comedy that is Ski School had arrived on disc, I had to watch it (even though I saw it countless times on cable TV in my teen years).

Dean Cameron stars as partying, sarcastic ski instructor Dave, who just wants to have fun on the slopes, get drunk, and maybe bag a girl or two. He's not exactly the model teacher for the All-Star Ski School which completely upsets his fellow skier, and school founder, Reid (Mark Thomas Miller) who's much too stuck-up and enjoying his successful career to let such a slob like Dave ruin things.

In his determination to make Dave look like a complete ass, Reid challenges him to try and win the yearly competition and, as jerks in these movies tend to do, gives him the biggest group of misfit students (he dubs "Section 8") that he can in order to make sure there's no chance of that. Of course, he wasn't quite expecting the dark horse new student, John (Tom Breznahan) to actually be one Hell of a skier. This leads to all sorts of things you'd expect from this kind of low-brow, low-budget comedy as our likeable goofs get into all sorts of wacky situations, there's some mild slope romance, a whole bunch of pranks against Reid and his crew, a plot to sell the resort, and even some skiing footage. This is all fine and dandy, and all a fiend of this sub-genre of comedy demands, but it's unfortunate that, a) there's not nearly enough raunchy humour to sate my appetite, b) the same thing goes for exposed female skin (when you have Charlie Spradling in the cast, you better damn well deliver on this front - this is the girl who had the best scene in Puppet Master II when she's topless and cut up by hooked-handed puppet, Blade), and c) the skiing sequences look pretty crappy for the most part.

I'm not going to say that Ski School is on the downward level of the snowboarding comedy, Frostbite, but at the same time I'm almost thinking that the sequel (which was directed by this film's screenwriter, David Mitchell) does a much better job hitting all the notes I mentioned above that was missing. Also, under the direction of Damian Lee, we never really get a chance to see the beautiful mountainsides that filming on location in Whistler, British Columbia offers. This is basically a movie that gets by mainly on its dopey tone and the fact the cast is agreeable and fun to watch.

In the lead Cameron proves to me exactly what I thought of him the first time I saw him as "Chainsaw" in the Mark Harmon flick, Summer School: this guy is pretty damn engaging. He smirks his way through the movie delivering one-liners whenever possible and actually helps make a lot of the dumb jokes tolerable. This is the same actor who actually managed to stand out in the faux slasher mess that was 1988's Bad Dreams. It's really too bad his run of b-movies in the 90's (including the sequel to this) would lead to mostly guest shots on various television shows. The aforementioned Spradling looks good but isn't given much else to do and Stuart Fratkin offers some chuckles as Dave's sidekick, Fritz.

As for behind the camera, director-producer Lee made a name for himself in Canadian cinema by being a part of many b-grade flicks such as Watchers, Scorned, and various Jeff Wincott action vehicles. Writer Mitchell worked alongside Lee on many of those films and is currently finishing up (ironically enough) another ski comedy entitled Shred that stars Tom Green. (Chris Hartley, 7/9/08)

Directed By: Damian Lee.
Written By: David Mitchell.

Starring: Dean Cameron, Tom Breznahan, Patrick Labyorteaux, Mark Thomas Miller.