Since it’s December, I thought I’d review a few Winter or Christmas themed movies. What better way to kick off the holiday season than with a movie about a snowman that kills people?
Today we watch Jack Frost, a 1996 film that gives us a glimpse into the life of a small-town sheriff and shows us what happens when scientists play God.
Scientists playing God rarely, if ever, goes well for townsfolk.
The movie starts by giving us a backstory about a deranged serial killer, aptly named, Jack Frost. He’s known for murdering people in varying, yet all equally deplorable ways. Luckily, Jack was caught when he stopped to pee off the side of the road and was happened upon by a small-town sheriff. Now, Jack has been caught, and the actual movie begins during Jack’s ride to the place where he has been sentenced to die by lethal injection. Unfortunately for everyone else, the truck carrying Jack slams headfirst into a truck filled with “Top Secret Genetic Acid”. You can really tell how “top secret” it is by the giant label on the side of the truck that says “Top Secret Genetic Acid.” After stumbling from the wreckage, Jack is sprayed with the acid and falls into the snow, forever changing him into a snowman.
For those of you playing at home, remember, Jack’s DNA was mixed with acid and snow. DNA, acid, and water, this creates an evil snowman, capable of melting and refreezing at will. This is why I’m not a scientist, obviously.
The rest of the movie follows Jack, who is now hell-bent on getting revenge on the Sherriff that put him away. In his own words, Jack is “the world’s most pissed off snow-cone.”
This movie is very similar to most serial killer horror movies from the 90’s, in that it features a simple town filled with simple folk, an average, yet capable protagonist, and an evil being that can speak only in one-liners. In this case, the evil being is a murderous serial killer mutant snowman.
Jack kills roughly 35% of the town on his mission to take out the Sherriff. Some tricks up his metaphorical sleeves include icicle teeth, the ability to melt and refreeze elsewhere, also he can shoot icicles out of his palms like a harpoon gun.
There isn’t really a moral or life-lesson to be learned here. There’s no problem solving or overall theme. This is simply gore, jump scares, and cheesy one-liners at it’s purist. A snowman shows up, kills a lot of people, and then the snowman gets killed with hairdryers and a pickup truck bed full of antifreeze.
Some of Jack’s more memorable kills in the movie include; using a sled to decapitate a teenage boy, shooting icicle harpoons through a young man’s face, refreezing in the bathwater of a young woman and then bashing her face in, and stuffing a woman’s mouth full of Christmas ornaments and then punching her in the face.
Overall, this movie delivers exactly what it promises; a snowman that kills people. There isn’t much else to be gained from watching it. It’s available on Netflix, but I can’t really recommend purchasing it. Jack Frost may have been entertaining in the mid-90’s, but this movie simply hasn’t stood the test of time very well.
If you absolutely need to extend your “awful Christmas movie viewing party”, go ahead and throw this one in. Otherwise, it can be skipped.
Some of the most common reason of what causes nightmares in children are movies like these. Toddlers don't have the capacity yet to separate real from imaginary.
That last picture isn't from the horror film- its from the movie with the old Batman who dies and comes back as a snowman because he loves his kid.