Two for two; can we make it a clean sweep, so to speak?
Sure we can.
Title: Jack Frost
Year: 1997
Writer(s): Michael Cooney, Jeremy Paige
Director: Michael Cooney
Genre: Comedy Horror/Slasher
Stars: Christopher Allport, Stephen Mendel, F. William Parker, Scott MacDonald, Shannon Elizabeth, Rob LaBelle
Now here’s an interesting thing. Six years ago I featured this in the abovementioned
25 of the Worst Christmas Movies Ever - Probably but it seems I got it wrong. There are in fact
two movies named
Jack Frost, released within a year of each other. One stars Michael Keaton as a dad who comes back as a snowman (weird enough) and that’s fine, probably worthy of inclusion anyway on my original list. However when I was making a follow-up list this year (no I didn’t check it twice: you think I have that kind of time? I’m programmed to be
very busy, you know!) I included the sequel
Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Killer Snowman, released in 2000. It seemed odd to me that an actor of Keaton’s standing would take part in what appeared to be a cheap slasher comedy, but I thought, maybe he did it for laughs.
Turns out that’s not the case.
The sequel is the follow-up to
this movie, which is the original slasher comedy horror one and Keaton’s is, well, not. I’m pretty sure I saw it on some list on its own merits, and I’m not going to go back checking it now - and I’m certainly not going to watch it - but I may have been doing it a disservice, and if so, I apologise Mr. Keaton, if somewhere in cyberspace this article comes to your attention. My bad. Though blame the writer of the movie for not checking if the title had already been used before going ahead. Still, my bad.
This, on the other hand, seems pure slasher comedy gold, in all the worst ways possible, so I’m hoping it will finish off our trio of the terrible and leave us all with an uncomfortable ache in our stomach that has nothing to do with the third helping of turkey, and a headache that can’t be blamed on the booze.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...
From the off I’m disturbed at the idea of a little child asking for a story and being told about a serial killer named Jack Frost. I mean, yes, obviously it’s acting but you can hear the child get upset as the story turns from what she thought it might be to a very dark and terrible one, and the sadistic delight the adult seems to take making the account as visceral and graphic as possible, while clearly aware the child is becoming terrified, and even asks for the story to stop, but he goes on - this is very troubling. It’s not a good start. Yes, it’s just a movie. Yes, they’re both actors. But do we need this sort of gratuitous, well, you can only call it meanness, can’t you? And towards a kid? Bah.
The movie opens (all the above nastiness has taken place over the credits, possibly turning some people off before the thing even starts) with a prison van heading into deep snow at night, in the back serial killer Jack Frost, being conveyed to prison for his execution. Of course it crashes, colliding indeed with another van carrying genetic experimental material. As Jack exults in his reprieve, the hatch on the van blows and he is doused in the genetic material. Next we see a flashback to the sheriff who caught him, after the FBI had failed over several years, and now that sheriff passes, with his family, the point where Frost’s accident has just occurred.
When an old man is found dead just outside of Snomonton (I kid you not, again), sitting in his rocking chair outside his house, nobody can figure it out. No sign of injury, no weapon, no suspect. The sheriff, Sam Tiler (seriously? Like, Sam Tyler from
Life on Mars? Different spelling sure, and he was a detective, but still…) gets in touch with the FBI to ensure Frost is dead. The murder - his head was forced back with such strength that it snapped - sparks unrest in the village and men arm themselves. Meanwhile Tiler’s son is menaced by a group of bullies as he tries to give the finishing touches to a snowman someone - not him - has built in his garden. The bully - Billy (yeah, Billy the bully, ho hum) knocks the head off the snowman, and promptly loses his head - literally. His own snow sled slices it off after he has, um, lost his balance.
Billy’s dad is not convinced and thinks the sheriff's son was to blame. Given the disparity in their sizes, this seems unlikely, and the fact that he puts his hands on the sheriff, even considering he’s suffering from grief-related anger, and Tiler doesn’t react really, is a little hard to believe. Out in his garden that night, Jake Metzner, Billy’s father, thinks he hears someone talking to him, but there’s nobody there. Except that snowman. Taking an axe and ready to confront, as he sees it, the psycho who killed old man wotsit, he ends up with the axe buried in his head. The snowman (look, let’s just cut all the mystery and spoilers out here, huh? It’s Jack, obviously) then kills his wife by strangling her with the Christmas tree lights. Nice. Paul Davrow, the general store owner and friend of Sheriff Tiler, comes upon the scene and can’t believe it. He runs off.
The FBI turn up. Are they the FBI? One of the guys is Stone, a research scientist for the company that made the genetic material Jack was doused in, and he’s already been talking about how they now have a live subject, and that it’s a “pity” it happens to be a serial killer. They examine the water footprint left at the Metzners’ home and Stone is aghast. His doohickey shows him that the water can freeze, unfreeze and freeze again, which explains (kind of) how Jack got into the house, and indeed back out. Like a ghost he’s literally leaking in and out through the walls and doors, seeping in under the cracks, and reforming once inside. Not like a ghost then. Well, you know what I mean. Look, just shut up okay?
Tiler is told to put a curfew in place, and just as he announces this (at the Snowman Festival, no less!) a crazed Paul Davrow arrives and starts smashing all the snowmen outside, having seen Jack with his own eyes. He’s taken into custody for his own safety. Deputy Pullman is sent to his house to see what spooked him, but on the way Jack accosts him, takes his car and runs him over. Yeah you read that correctly: a living snowman can drive a car. What’s he using to grip the wheel? And how’s he sitting anyway? Questions that will probably never be answered, and it might be best for all if we just back slowly away without making eye contact, and continue on down this strange snowy rabbit hole.
Jill has set off to meet her lover, Tommy Davrow, in the sheriff’s empty house, and as they prepare to get down to it, there’s a Jack attack! The kid goes first, then the homicidal snowman has some fun with Jill. He then heads back to the station to take on the sheriff, where Stone and Manners are forced to come clean - kind of - about their intentions. When Tiler realises this is Jack Frost come back from the dead (not really; he never quite died, but, you know…) he attacks him with, um, a hairdryer. Well, seems an appropriate weapon to use against something made of snow, yes? It actually seems to be working until he advances too far and the cord comes out. Oops!
There emerges another problem: Stone doesn’t want to kill Jack. He’s the proof he’s been looking for that his experimental technology works, and he wants to study the snowman. Hard to do, of course, if you haven’t got a head, but you know how scientists are, don’t live in the real world that often. Manners - who turns out not in fact to have been an FBI agent at all (shock horror!) but a paid mercenary working for Stone - knocks him down, and Tiler, Sally and he prepare a bunch of, er, cleaning products with which to take on the crazy snowman. They escape, and then torch the building, Jack exploding in the process.
And that’s the end of that.
Of course it is.
Not.
Takes more than a little ol’ explosion to put our Jack Frost down!
Reconstituting himself - though slightly knackered, with his head sticking out of his side - Jack hobbles off, telling them he’ll be back. As they regroup, they consider forcing him into the boiler room, where the temperatures might be high enough to stop him reforming. (Look, there’s some technobabble which explains how Jack became what he is, what Stone’s research is all about, but it’s so stupidly tongue-in-cheek and up its own arse that I’m not going to dignify it with inclusion here. Watch the movie if you must know. Believe me, it’s not integral to the plot). They then attack him with more hairdryers, this time, Tiler having learned from his previous mistake, they use an extension cord, and Jack is forced back
Convinced all is done, as Jack is pushed into the boiler and melts, everyone heads off, but once again the terror snowman is not done, and he emerges from the boiler, kills Manners and Stone, and pounds outside. Actually, he doesn’t kill Stone so much as possess him (but then he kills him) and through a pretty unlikely chain of circumstances they find out that anti-freeze hurts him, so they drive a big truck full of the stuff up and the sheriff knocks Jack into it, and that’s the end of him. They bury what’s left, along with a bunch of anti-freeze, and the nightmare is over.
By which I mean, of course, the movie.
QUOTES
Tiler: “Look, old man Harper lived out here, way on the outskirts of town…”
Davrow : “What does that mean? We
all live way out on the outskirts of town!”
Tiler: “It’ll be like a gold-dang turkey shoot!”
Sally: “Hey it’s quicker than a jury!”
(Fine words for a cop, huh?)
Tiler (to Billy’s dad): “It couldn’t have been a fight! Billy is two feet taller than Ryan!”
(Um, maybe one and a half feet, now…)
Jill Metzner: “Jesus dad! I love him!”
Jake Metzner: “Do not be forsaking the name of the Lord in my house, little girl!”
(Forsaking? Doesn’t be mean taking in vain? Nobody forsakes a name, much less that of Jesus. Not in that way anyhow. Also: Jake and Jill? Really?
)
Deputy Pullman (on coming across the corpse of Mrs. Metzner): “You don’t think we should leave her up for the full days of Christmas then?”
Tiler: “I want you to call around and see if you can get in touch with Jill Metzner. Oh, and call the FBI too: some ******* in the field office. Who are you?”
Agent Manners: “I’m the *******.”
Manners: “Have the M.V.s been moved yet?”
Tiler: “Motor… vehicles?”
Manners: “Murder victims.”
Tiler: “I’m going to instigate a twenty-four hour curfew for the town. Now I’m not going to arrest you if you’re walking down the main street, but it’s for your own safety.”
(Right. So basically, a curfew you’re not going to explain, or enforce - and more, have
told the f
ucking townspeople you’re not going to enforce - and you think they’re going to just, what, do the right thing?)
Tiler (about Manners): “What the hell’s eating him?”
Pullman: “I bet it ain’t his girlfriend!”
Tiler (after Jack has been melted): “We iced him!”
Jack (as Manners turns the hair dryer on him, only to realise it’s been unplugged): “Blow me!”
Notes
The van transporting Jack Frost is labelled STATE EXECUTIONAL TRANSFER VEHICLE. Executional? Is that even a word??
Go to love an entrepreneur grabbing the moment! When tensions rise in Snomonton, Davrow yells “I’ll be open all night if anyone wants to buy ammo! Twenty percent off for emergencies!” He’s not short on takers.
It’s absolutely hilarious that as Billy’s body - head carried separately - is taken to the hearse, the background music playing is the “Tidings of comfort and joy” part of
God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen!
Agent Manners warns Tiler that if he doesn’t fall in line he’ll have him replaced. I’ve seen enough FBI shows to know that there is absolutely no way a Federal agent has the power to replace a town sheriff.
Again, kudos to whoever arranged the music. As Jill prepares to seduce her boyfriend and they take off their clothes, the tune playing is “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. As they get more passionate and heated, the tune speeds up into a jazzy, breathless number, certainly reflecting their excitement. Then, as she prepares to undo the last buttons on her blouse, it slows right down, like stripper music, and when she stops, holding off, not opening the last button, it goes into a warp and stops. Really well done. I haven’t seen music - certainly Christmas music - used this well in a movie since, well, almost ever. Guy should have got a reward. Who was responsible? Well, music is by Chris Anderson and Carl Shurtz, but it could be down to the director, or even the editor, one Terry Kelley. But whoever it was: best thing about the movie.
The bottle of champagne fizzing up while Tommy holds it at his crotch is another cleverly sexual idea. Clever too when the ice in the freezer looks as if it has a carrot poking out of it (which it may do) and so looks like Jack is in there. I also like the tiny cardboard snowman popping out of the drawer. All nice little effects that set you up for what’s coming.
I love when Manners is talking and Sally is behind him, he holds out his mug as if he expects her to take it like a good little girl. She doesn’t, and he’s left holding it, looking pretty stupid. Would have been perfect had he let it go and it smashed on the ground.
Good touch when the priest, firing a hairdryer at Jack like the rest of them, makes the sign of the cross with it, totally deadpan serious.
I would say they missed a perhaps obvious chance for a quip as Jack melts in the boiler. He doesn’t growl “I’m melting! What a world!” Oh well.
I must credit Scott MacDonald, who voiced Jack. Although he’s only seen on screen for a few minutes before he gets transformed, he has the best lines of all while a snowman, and plays the part with gleeful abandon, almost a Nicholson Joker. Bravo. His deep, gravelly voice is perfect too.
Is there anything good about this movie?
You know, it’s not half as bad as it … all right, it
is as bad as it sounds, But they get something of a pass because it’s played for laughs. Even though lines are delivered with perfect straight-faced sincerity, it’s clear those saying them know they’re mouthing cliches and having fun. Nobody takes this seriously, which might have been a problem if they had, because how could you? But the fact that behind the mask, as it were, everyone seems to be in on the joke (especially MacDonald, who turns in a star performance surely worthy of some award as the maniacal snowman, firing off one-liners while that frowning snowman face just makes them all the funnier, to say nothing of the cigar in his mouth!) makes it okay.
The story line is ludicrous, the resolution, though inventive, damn ridiculous (who would put anti-freeze in porridge, which is how Tiler finds out how to inflict damage on Jack - couldn’t he just have I don’t know, thrown a can at him and accidentally hit him? Seems to be stretching it, and I say that in the full knowledge of how crazy this movie is) and the murders are just too funny to be scary.
It’s maybe a case of the movie being so bad it’s good, but that usually implies that it wasn’t set up that way, and I think this was. Nobody could have been expected to have taken this on its own merits, so surely they were just looking for ways to point out mad scenarios used in slasher movies and make fun of them? If so, they succeeded quite well. Mind you, the fact that there’s a sequel to this gives me the impression they may not have learned the lesson, though its being set on a tropical island - well, maybe the joke continues. Does it wear thin though? I don’t know, but here I think just about everything works, and it falls a gnat’s wing short of greatness.
Good fun, but I don’t think I’ll be checking my garden for homicidal snowmen next time it snows!
I mean, how could you take such a concept seri - uh? What’s that out there? Surely not! It couldn’t be! Oh fu
ck! I - I gotta go… Happy Christmas all!
What? No, of course it’s not a fu
cking giant living snowman! Don’t be stupid.
It’s much, much worse.
Oh God! It is, isn’t it?
Christmas carollers….