Review #319: Jack Frost (1997)
The Twelve Slays of Christmas #5 - Jack Frost (1997)
Just a quick clarification for the record: I am NOT reviewing the 1998 movie titled Jack Frost, starring Michael Keaton as a man named Jack Frost who dies and happens to be resurrected as a snowman to reunite with his son. I am reviewing the 1997 movie titled Jack Frost, about a serial killer named Jack Frost who is set to be executed in a town called Snowmonton and who happens to get caught in a chemical spill that resurrects him as a snowman to get revenge. Don't worry, that's an easy mistake to make (in fact I downloaded the wrong movie twice while trying to get my hands on a copy to review).
I've already pretty much given away the whole plot: a serial killer gets ironically turned into a snowman and decides to take revenge on the sheriff that apprehended him (kinda sorta). I'll start off with some good things about this movie: I think it's genuinely hilarious at times, it has some moments that are just a hair's breadth away from being genuinely terrifying, and it's a good time all around. It definitely looks low-budget, and many of the effects look very cheap and silly, but I can tell the filmmakers were taking the movie seriously because despite the inherent silliness in how the villain looks (don't let the poster above fool you, the actual snowman in the movie looks like a cartoon come to life and isn't scary in the slightest) I can tell they took great pains to do the most with what they had. I don't know if the snowman was supposed to look as bad as it did or if they just did a VERY good job with writing the action and dialogue around budgetary issues, but whatever the case, most of this movie just works. I don't really know how else to put it- yes it looks bad, but yes it works regardless.
It's not all good, though. A few scenes feel completely disconnected from the movie (the scene where Shannon Elizabeth's character decides to force her boyfriend to sneak into the sheriff's house to take a bath and have wine and sex in front of a roaring fire is not only completely nonsensical, but it doesn't even fit the timeline of the movie and feels strongly like it was added in after the rest of the movie was finished because they knew Shannon Elizabeth was about to get famous) and the climax feels like one absurd deus ex machina after another (first, the protagonist's son apparently tried to get his dad to eat antifreeze- likely accidentally because he was a dumb child, but he kept apologizing so he must have known it was bad- and second, the store owner character was given "five minutes" to accomplish a task that was not explained to him in the slightest and this task would have easily taken multiple hours even if he knew what he was supposed to do). It also makes no sense to me why Jack spends so little time trying to kill the sheriff or his family (despite him being the one who got Jack put on death row in the first place), and instead he spends most of the movie killing random disparate people (including at one point, defending the sheriff's son from some bullies). On one hand I can brush these away as the writers just not taking the movie too seriously due to the ridiculousness of the subject matter or possibly the low budget, but when they clearly put so much work into other parts of the film, I can't just let them have their cake and eat it too.
But, I have one more item of praise to give this movie, and it's a big one: there's a point in the film where one of the characters, a scientist working with the FBI responsible for creating the acid that dissolved Jack Frost's corporeal form and turning him into an unstoppable unkillable machine of death, remarks on the scientific ramifications of Jack's condition. To quote directly from the film: "It means that the soul exists- and it's not just some esoteric spiritual entity or even a vague electrical force. The soul.... is a chemical." Say what you will about spirituality or fictional science mumbo-jumbo or whatever- that is a chilling (no pun intended) revelation to put into dialogue, and it's such a clever bit of writing that I once again feel like these filmmakers knew what they were doing from beginning to end. Even if I didn't like the rest of the movie I would give this movie a positive rating for that line alone, I think it's so brilliant.
Anyway, this movie is ridiculous and silly, but it's also fantastic. I'll recommend this one to anybody, warts and all.
Overall Rating: 8/10 Snow Balls
Isn't It Ironic: The lead actor, Christopher Allport, had a TON of small roles in various shows and movies in the 80s and 90s, but is arguably most well-known for his role in this movie and its sequel (which, just to reiterate, is about his character being assailed by a living mass of snow). It's then borderline poetic that Allport tragically died in 2008... in an avalanche. You can't make this up.
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