Saturday, January 10, 2009

Jack Frost

Michael Cooney | 1996 | 89 mins | USA

The holiday season is behind us, and one might think that the time to watch Christmas-themed horror is over for another year. But in all honesty, I don't think it's ever the wrong time to watch a film about a demented psycho killer snowman.

To clarify for any of you who may have been confused by the photo above, this is not the heartwarming drama starring Michael Keaton as a dead dad who's come back as a snowman to spend the holiday season with his family. This is a ridiculous late '90s slasher film in which an evil-as-evil-can-be snowman rampages through a small town the night before Christmas.

The super bad-ass serial killer, Jack Frost (Scott MacDonald) is being transported from jail to the electric chair one wintry night when the truck crashes and he gets accidentally sprayed by some sort of experimental 'acid'. Instead of killing him, the liquid essentially makes his body disintegrate, only to allow his "soul" to bond with the snow under his feet, turning him into, you guessed it, a demented psycho killer snowman.

The snowman returns to the cute little town (it's called Snowmonton, by the way) where the sheriff who put him behind bars lives with his wife and son. The sheriff is still haunted by Jack Frost's rampage through his life, though none of the back-story is ever filled in. All we know is, he's a bad guy, and now he's a snowman, and it's nearly Christmas. Shit is fucked.

You'd think that a killer snowman would be fairly easy to kill - you just melt him, right? Not so with old Jack Frost. Since the acid incident, he's been able to control his molecules so that he can melt and re-freeze at will, allowing him not only to escape attempts on his life but also to enter places by melting and slipping in under the door, that sort of thing.

Pretty soon a pair of shady federal agents turn up to either help or muck things up. Who really cares at this point - all I want are more hilarious kills featuring christmas tree ornaments and snowman rape scenes where the evil dude reconstitutes himself out of a hot babe's bathwater. Seriously.

Possibly one of the stupidest Chirstmas-themed horror films I've seen to date. But in spite of this warning, you're totally wondering how they end up destroying him, right?

Highly recommended.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. How in the hell have I missed this in my so-bad-it's-good horror travelings? And I see there's a sequel, too! Forget It's a Wonderful Life, I know what I'll be watching next December...

katarina said...

I recently acquired the sequel as well. Haven't watched it yet, but I'm definitely very excited to.

mike said...

i saw this one when it first hit the video stores. a good night in for sure.

Unknown said...

i watched this with a group of friends when i was about 18 years old and it had the entire room screaming with laughter. i think the white oven mitt mashing the woman's face into the christmas ornaments was this film's raison d'etre.