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Friday, May 4, 2012

Day 125: Jack Frost


Jack Frost
Oh hai!

I remember seeing the cover for the movie Jack Frost in a video store and thought it was really funny. When you walked past it, the cover went from a smiling, friendly snowman into a hideous fanged snow creature. Even at a younger age, I knew this was completely ridiculous. Well, I needed something ridiculous to watch, and low and behold, it came up on Netflix. A killer mutant snowman? Sure, let's give it a shot.

Jack Frost (not to be confused with the equally ridiculous Michael Keaton movie of the same name) is a 1996 horror-comedy starring Scott Macdonald (Fire In The Sky, Water For Elephants) as the deranged serial killer, Jack Frost. After cutting a murderous swath through the country, Jack gets careless and is caught by Sam Tiler (Christopher Allport, The X Files, ER), the sheriff of the small town of Snowmonton. Sentenced to death, the truck carrying Jack to his execution gets into an accident with a truck carrying an experimental acid. Jack escapes, but is doused with the acid, melting his body into the snowy ground. His molecules bond with the snow, turning him into a living, breathing snowman. Jack begins to terrorize the small town, brutally murdering people in various forms of icey and snowy ways. Hearing of the town's murders, Agent Manners and Agent Stone come to Snowmonton to investigate. It is revealed that Agent Stone is a representative of a genetic research company that created the acid and that the killer snowman is really Jack Frost. He explains that Jack's transformation proves the human soul really exists as a chemical and can help man survive a nuclear holocaust. Will Sheriff Tiler be able to overcome his fear of Jack Frost and defeat him or will Jack put him on ice? 

Free hugs!

Clearly, this movie is wacky. How do you criticize a movie that knows it's fairly stupid? The story was probably conceived after a night of heavy drinking and watching Christmas cartoons. The story rangers from funny to weird to absurd. It's fine to have a simple story in order to get to the jokes and killing, but there are just some glaring errors that made me slap my forehead. Like why would Shannon Elizabeth's character and her boyfriend sneak into the Sheriff's house to have sex? That makes less than no sense. Why would the Sheriff son put anti-freeze in oatmeal? That's not a typo by the way, that actually happened. If Jack can turn into water, why does the Sheriff try to stuff the spaces in a door with paper to keep him out? I know it's silly to point out the flaws in a movie with a killer snowman, but I can't help it.

The humor in the movie has a decent amount of laughs and plenty of eyerolls. The idea of a a snowman raping a girl with his carrot nose was not funny and was really terrible. There is a good amount of action with some fun kills and blood. The snowman and special effects are incredibly cheap looking. The acting is passable, but not exactly award-winning. There are some creative camera shots, but they get over used and end up making me dizzy by the end. 

Oh, that's cold

Jack Frost usually falls into the “it's so bad it's good” category of B-movies. That is why it is regarded by some as a cult classic. There is some humor, but plenty of terrible one-liners and swing-and-miss attempts. It has some decent violence, but is hindered by a hilariously terrible snowman costume and awful effects. Is the movie good? No. Is it fun to watch. Sort of. Jack Frost probably best watched with friends and a few cocktails.

4/10

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