TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET

A family’s ski vacation turns deadly when they find out their social connections are a little more connected than they thought.

All gift-basket designer Claire Hanover (A Real Basket Case, 2007) wants is some quality time with her family, especially daughter Judy, who’s been away in Paris for her senior year of college. A ski trip to Breckenridge seems ideal: close enough to their Colorado Springs home for Judy to swing by and do her laundry on the way from the airport, with plenty of opportunity for family bonding as moguls zing past on the upper slopes of Ptarmigan. But willful Judy has more interest in bonding with tall, dark Nick Contino than with Claire, and it’s only because Nick and his father Anthony are off skiing the back bowls of Copper Mountain that Judy agrees to spend the day on Peak Eight with her parents and Nick’s sister Stephanie. When the two girls start down Ptarmigan’s Claimjumper run, Stephanie crashes into a tree, sustaining fatal injuries. Though Judy thinks a showoff snowboarder ran Stephanie off the trail, Claire finds ski tracks leading from the crash site into the woods. Her suspicions grow when the snowboarder, Boyd Naylor, is run down by an SUV with plates similar to Anthony’s. The Continos’ Russian pal Ivanov, who supplied the vehicle to them in return for unspecified favors, brings out Claire’s inner Mama Bear, determined to protect her cub.

Groundwater’s second leaves the bunny slope behind, offering some genuine black-diamond thrills.