This leering jiggle movie is so wretched that only college students in drug-induced stupors could sit through it--and even they would hate themselves in the morning. DOWNHILL WILLIE packs up all the beer-blast elements of ANIMAL HOUSE (1978) and transports them to a ski resort overrun by
loutish ignoramuses.
Accident prone when not slaloming, ski whiz Willie Jones (Keith Coogan) can't stand idly by when his mentor, Jake (Tom Heaton), could lose his charter plane business. When Mel Horner (Fred Stoller), an ad exec for the beverage Jock Pop, proposes a $500,000 jackpot for an extreme skiing
competition, Willie puts his talent on the line for Jake. His opponents include stuck-up stuntman Kelly Burns (Phil Hayes), superficially squeaky-clean media star Spider Bolton (Lochlyn Monroe), German mama's boy Hans Saxer (Lee Reherman), and the sole female entrant, Annie Meyer (Staci Keenan).
Playing dirty, Spider sabotages gullible Willie and uses his payrolled bimbo, Samantha (April Telek), to sap the energy of his opponents with sex. After cheating Annie out of her deserved victory during an elimination round, Spider whittles the contest down to Willie and himself. Although
unprepared for Spider's nasty pranks, like switching around the course direction sign, Willie surmounts dangerous curves and obstacles to sail to surprise victory over sore loser Spider. Bumpkin Willie wins the prize money for Jake, and Annie's heart for himself.
While scads of smutty clones of WHERE THE BOYS ARE (1960) have focused on the increasingly randy behavior of college kids, few are as grotesquely crude as this mirthless farce. The cast can be congratulated on its adequacy, but none of the actors are born comics, except for Fred Stoller, and he's
forced to be the butt of mean-spirited gags. Perhaps ski bums will be enthralled by the spectacular stunt work, but extreme ski footage can be glimpsed on TV sports shows. So why put up with the surrounding toilet humor? (Profanity, adult situations, sexual situations, substance abuse.) leave a comment