In the opening of "Hot Ice," a detective arrests Victor (Michael Thayer before he was Max Thayer, and before he put some meat on his bones) and his wife Charlotte (Patti Kelly, all blond hair, toothy smiles and freckled cleavage) for selling phony bonds, only to be foiled when he's pushed into a closet. Charlotte secures the detective inside the closet by placing a folding director's chair beneath the doorknob. Not only is the chair barely sturdy enough for sitting in, it's about five inches below the doorknob. But since this is a Stephen Apostolof (a.k.a. A.C. Stephen) movie, the detective is trapped long enough for our crooks to hop on a plane and escape to the Matterhorn Ski Resort, where "rock star" Diamond Jim is performing. Diamond Jim is called such because he sings while draped in REAL diamonds (he's also what a "Benny & Joon" sequel might look like starring Eric Balfour, but that's beside the point). Victor and Charlotte get wind of the real diamonds—a detail that Diamond Jim's manager is only too happy to share with anyone within earshot—and they know they have to get their hands on that "ice." Though the thieving couple could just drill through the door of the resort's plywood safe, Victor and Charlotte instead hatch a plan that involves sending the resort's manager (Apostolof stock player Forman Shane, billed as Harvey Shain here) on a false errand and Victor seducing the manager's wife, who will have sex with any man except her husband. Hilarity ensues.
Well, it's supposed to. None of director Apostolof's movies have a reputation for being any good, but they are known for having lots of T&A. So what "Hot Ice" lacks in laughs should be more than compensated with lots of nudity and simulated sex, right? As much as that would help, no. Despite having plenty of sexual situations, most involving the manager's wife Danielle (Teresa Parker, who should have been told those facial expressions were neither sexy nor cute), as well as some shapely '70s babes (Mariwin Roberts, Linda Gildersleeve) and popular adult performers (Rick Cassidy, Ric Lutze) in the cast, "Hot Ice" is meant to be an R-rated comedy. In lieu of simulated humping we get Forman Shane chewing scenery like a third rate Harvey Korman and lots of ski footage re-purposed from Apostolof's "The Snow Bunnies." During the movie's few sex scenes Apostolof goes out of his way not to expose too much flesh, usually by zooming in on the dude's back, though he does throw in a scene of spontaneous topless dancing at a cocktail lounge ("Go ahead—take it off!"), a genuinely funny moment, if only because it's so ridiculous.
Ed Wood, Jr. was a frequent collaborator with Apostolof, co-writing scripts for "Fugitive Girls" and "Drop Out Wife" among others, but Wood is credited only as an assistant director for "Hot Ice." Despite some scenes that suggest otherwise, Apostolof said Wood had no hand in writing the script for this movie. Though Apostolof proves he's just as capable of writing a bad script on his own, Wood's input might have made "Hot Ice" a special brand of terrible.
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