Jack Frost tells the story of a serial killer named Jack Frost (a little on the nose) on a prison convoy through Snowmonton (much too much on the nose) until one thing leads to another and the convoy collides with a tanker carrying genetic material that mixes with Frost and fuses him with the surrounding snow.
It’s a quick and nonsensical origin and it basically gives our monster the same backstory as a Spider-Man villain. Believe it or not, there are actually some uncomfortable parallels between this movie and Spider-Man 3. The shot where we see into the snow down to the cells and watch them crystalize before pulling away to a shot of the snow regrouping is almost identical to a scene in that film, albeit with a microscopic budget.
Our hero here is the sheriff who caught Frost and for whom Frost is naturally harboring unresolved anger. Accordingly, the snowman focuses much of his vengeance on the cop who put him away. The plot is about as generic as a killer snowman plot can get (which is a shame, when you think about it, as killer snowmen are not generic by definition) because the movie isn’t concerned much with details like plot, character development, or anything that doesn’t pertain to mutant snowmen.
This movie is concerned with its title character, a wisecracking, mostly latex monster with eyes and heart of coal. Really, the movie’s only entertaining when it’s focused on the snowman’s rampage and the filmmakers clearly realized that because after a certain point, that’s all the movie becomes.
The murderous, pun-happy snowman and the death scenes (which range from mind-numbingly stupid to brilliantly stupid) are the highlights of an otherwise torturous movie. Unforgettable scenes include a woman getting strangled with Christmas lights and a tasteless scene in which the snowman rapes a woman (American Pie’s Shannon Elizabeth in her first movie role) in a bathtub.
Let’s be clear: This is an almost offensively stupid movie. The acting is terrible, but this isn’t a movie to watch for the quality of its filmmaking (although a little wouldn’t hurt) and it does succeed in being—at the very least—entertaining. The snowman could not look more fake and that’s a good thing, that’s exactly what this movie needed in order to work as well as it does. It’s not convincing and if it was, the movie wouldn’t be half as memorable. It’s certainly a chore to sit through when it tries in vain to develop character, yet I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie became essential Christmas time viewing at some point.
