Another year, another installment of east coast shenanigans from Meathead Films. How does this year’s film stack up to the rest of the Meathead library? It stacks up as better than average, better than last year, but still not realizing the potential we saw in Born From Ice.

Wild Stallions is downright exotic in its location selection. The Meats have always impressed me with their “ski anywhere” mentality and attitude. As a turn earner, I dig how far these guys will go to do something interesting. But they will also step outside of their home, climb a playground ladder, click in, and let it slide.

We get treated to all sorts of interesting places but the Mount Bohemia scene from Michigan was perhaps one of the more interesting selections in Meathead history. East Coast internet forums have highlighted this small mountain on a northern Michigan peninsula that features “triple diamond” terrain. It turns out that Mount Bohemia is no joke! Despite its limitd 800 vertical feet, Mount Bohemia looks to have more knarly natural terrain than all but a handful of New England ski areas.

Other locations include Blue Mountain in Pennsylvania, Tug Hill, jibbing in Connecticut and Quebec, the annual bumps at Killington, the usual powder skiing on Mansfield, the typical big park stuff at Sunday River, and the obligatory snow cat trip to the Chic Chocs. Despite all of “the usuals” making their annual appearance, there was ample new locales. I was pleasantly surprised to see the Meatheads finally return to Mount Washington for some action in Tuckerman Ravine and Gulf of Slides. About damn time!

The theming of the movie was kind of ridiculous. But I give the guys credit, they did it with gusto. The theming certainly did not add to the movie and at times detracted so overall I think they could have done better. Why even bother with a theme with this type of movie?

Music was on point and at times down right sick. Especially a broken beat track stuck somewhere in the midst of old school breaks with a drum and base ratt a tatt tatt snare at a half time feel. The editing of the images mixed perfectly with the music, especially the slowed down sequences of video. The rest of the audio was quality but that track had my head bopping and made the jibbing a little less tedious.

Not to say that the jibbing is boring! These guys are as good as it gets when it comes to jibbing and park and stuff. And the ingenuity and innovation is frequently stunning. But it just seems like every year we see more jibbing and less skiing (ouch, sorry if that statement offends any one but that is just how I feel about it!). And whereas the quality of the jibbers continues to increase, the skiing talent during the big mountain and powder scenes is almost non-existent. Stacey holds his own and the Ice Fall huck on Mount Washington was good. And we got a few quality powder shots from Jay and the Smuggler’s Notch area. But overall, the skiing talent pool is overwhelmingly slanted towards the guys jibbing, jumping, and parking.

So there you have it. The Meats travel all over the East spreading a wider net than ever before in terms of Radius they travel from their home town of Burlington, VT. The jibbing continues to evolve and astonish but there is too much of a good thing in this movie and I long to see more downhill skiing rather than jibbing on flat terrain or jumping over things (no matter how amazing that stuff is, it gets old when not juxtaposed with enough downhill terrain and powder skiing). A worthy addition to the Meathead Films library that steps it up compared to the most recent pair of flims but still lags behind their best work.