Wonderfully Horrible Netflix Instant Films: “Jack Frost”

You may recall from your high school English class that there are only five types of stories: Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, Man vs. God, and Man vs. The Soul Of A Serial Killer Inhabiting The Body Of a Homicidal Snowman. I'm alluding to the classic 1997 film Jack Frost. "But Jack, that sounds effing stupid." Yes, it is extremely stupid. This film was either made with tongue pressed firmly in cheek or with sheer hatred and contempt for their audience. Maybe both. Jack Frost was one of thousands of straight to video horror movies that were never meant for large scale consumption. It was the YouTube of its day only a hell of a lot more expensive. Put it out on a video store shelf and hope someone sees it. I saw it...oh yes, I saw it.

Jack Frost, (not to be mistaken with the schlocky Michael Keaton movie about the dead dad's ghost in a snowman), is about a homicidal snowman. Let's be clear, it isn't a movie about a snowman that turns into a murderer. That would be stupid. No, Jack Frost was a human serial killer on his way to be executed when a truck full of "genetic material" crashes into his prison truck. The weird goo, him, and the snow outside the truck fuse together. It's all kind of unclear. Whatever, just accept that the spirit of a dead madman is now in a snowman. Jack resumes his murdering when he goes after sheriff Tiler, the man who caught him. This rickety framework only exists to hold up scenes in which the snowman kills people with violent glee. In the end, sheriff Tiler throw Jack into a truck bed full of antifreeze. Jack is finally really dead...or is he? (DUM! DUM! DUM!).

Oh, God this movie is badly made. All of those things they taught me not to do in film school are used with abandon. The special effects look like they were rendered on a Commodore 64 and the makeup is only a step up from when you and your friends would use ketchup for fake blood. The snowman costume had to have been made by the director's mom. Still, the movie has an inexplicable charm that turned Jack Frost into that rarest of things for a crap film: cult classic status. There was even a sequel in which Jack Frost floats to the Caribbean and proceeds to kill people in a resort. If there is one problem with the movie I will not forgive is its lack of titties. It feels like the filmmakers intended to show lots of boobies but for whatever reason were unable to. Just when you think you are going to see a breast, Jack Frost shows up and ruins it. I will sit through any POS as long as there is some breastacular pay-off.