The Meatheads are a small and independent Ski Film production out fit from Burlington, Vermont. Snow Gods is the fifth DVD released by the Meatheads and continues the unique exclusive Northeast skiing focus. Despite a lack luster season, the Meatheads managed to put together a solid production including a variety of powder shots. But the film fails to offer substantial improvement from the previous year’s offering, Born From Ice. Regardless of comparison to past productions, Snow Gods is an excellent addition to any East Coaster’s ski video collection.

Snow Gods opens with scenes of rain and running water melting away sheets of ice. A fitting visual montage for the early months of the 2005-2006 ski season. Joe Morabito, who carries the movie with excellent powder and tree skiing, introduces the movie with a ski sacrifice to the Ski Gods during the latter days of a snowless January. While the Snow Gods did not respond immediately to the sacrifice, The Meatheads would find more than enough snow and powder eventually.

Since the rain and warm weather continued into February throughout New England, a small troupe of The Meatheads plotted a course to the Chic Chocs of Quebec on the Gaspe Peninsula. A variety of backcountry scenes ensue including some big mountain open bowl skiing, knee deep powder chutes, road side debauchery, and a side of hucks and jumps. Plenty of behind the scenes footage is included demonstrating that a trip to the Chic Chocs is just as much about the adventure and trip itself than the skiing. A few minutes of various natural and man made jib, rail, and park skiing end cap the Chic Choc segment before the movie switches gears to the highlight of the film at Jay Peak.

Joe Morabito and some other Meatheads made their way up to Jay Peak for some epic powder skiing in a segment featuring the movie’s money shot. With plenty of knee to waist deep tree shots, some excellent coverage was obtained including some awesome helmet camera shots courtesy of Joe Morabito who skis several steep step down powder shots.

Next is a rather repetitive segment originally featured in the previous Meatheads offering called Born From Ice. Randy “The Hammer” Grasso returns to the big screen sharing his obsession with bump skiing at Killington. Grasso drives up to Killington riding his motorcycle with long straight skis strapped to his back. This segment is well done and lots of fun; however, the repetition from the previous film can not be over looked and unfortunately puts the breaks on the film’s building excitement.

A night time tree, jib, and park session at Loon Mountain follows interspersed with various urban rail and park shots. The movie cuts to a quick powder session at Smuggler’s Notch before cutting back to a hodge podge of various shots from around the North East at smaller mountains and molehills. The park sessions begin to get rather old and boring but this segment is high lighted by a sick multiple aspect rail slide in an urban environment.

The movie finally gets back to some sick powder shots at Stowe, again featuring Joe Morabito who salvages the movie from the previous stale and uninteresting segments. Knee to waist deep powder and a lot of sick lines, tree shots, and nice hucks abound at The Meatheads home mountain. Between the Stowe and Jay Peak shots, nay sayers who complained of a season without any good powder days should be sufficiently educated and silenced.

Snow Gods concludes with a Superpark session at Sunday River which feels more like a paid advertisement for Sunday River than a segment from an up and coming lesser known upstart ski movie production outfit. The Meatheads gather scenes of the Superpark being built on White Heat including a ride inside a grooming machine before beginning the rather long segment of big air and park segment. The seven minute long segment drags on as a boring conclusion to the movie despite a few nice hucks and tricks being featured.

Some excellent bonus material is included with the DVD including behind the scenes in the Chic Chocs, more awesome powder scenes from Stowe and Jay Peak, Joe Morabito’s excellent helmet camera action, more bumps at Killington with The Hammer, Lost Ski Areas in Massachusetts, and a painful selection of crashes. I enjoyed watching the bonus features more than the feature presentation.

Snow Gods is a light weight ski movie at only forty-five minutes which includes the opening scenes, introduction, and credits. While this was acceptable for The Meatheads’ first few productions; future feature presentations need to step up to the plate with more content. With a cover price of twenty-five dollars, I expected a lot more for my money.

Other problems with the movie include a lack luster sound track that occasionally doesn’t line up well with the footage, over use of a grainy slow motion filter, and an over abundance of boring park, jib, and rail shots. The repeat of the Killington bump session with The Hammer from last year’s offering was a good segment but repetitive in nature which was a buzz kill. Some people may claim that the 2005-2006 ski season was especially challenging and did not present The Meatheads with much to work with. However, my experience is radically different as it was the season of the opportunist with an abundance of powder days for those that capitalized on short notice at the right locations. More than one third of the movie was park, jib, pipe, and rail action which is great in small doses but gets old quick.

Snow Gods is a fine addition to The Meatheads growing library of DVDs and offers up some great skiing despite a less than stellar season. However, the feature is rather disappointing considering how little improvement was made compared to the previous season’s movie, Born From Ice. The Meatheads came into their own this past year with a growing following and lots of big name sponsorships. The potential is there for The Meatheads to develop some amazing movies in our Eastern backyard that will challenge the major players. But Snow Gods failed to take the franchise to the next level and elevate the production and quality of skiing shots above the previous offering. Snow Gods is worthy of a purchase but fails to completely show the talent and production ability of The Meatheads. I look forward to their offering next year and expect a longer and more exciting product.