- Directed by Michael Cooney
- Written by
- Stars Christopher Allport, Scott MacDonald, Shannon Elizabeth
- Run Time: 1 hour, 29 minutes
- Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgement Zone
What happens when a death-row murderer gets sprayed with genetic chemicals? He becomes a killer snowman. It’s got a full winter’s worth of bad puns, and overall, it’s really pretty cool. For extra fun, look for a snowman in some form, in pretty much every single scene.
Synopsis
We hear a story about a killer named Jack Frost who loved to kill people as the credits roll. He put body parts in pies, but he was caught because he worked at the bakery. He’s being executed tonight…
We cut to security guards driving a prisoner transport through the snowstorm. This bus contains Jack Frost. There’s another van, containing genetic research materials. Jack overpowers the guard in the back just as the two trucks collide. Jack gets doused in chemicals, which do what these things always do in movies: they melt him into the snow. Jack flops around in the snow, and later we hear that he ran off— without legs.
Sam Tyler, the sheriff who arrested Frost in the first place, still has nightmares and flashbacks. Frost vowed revenge when Sam caught him. His son Ryan, wants to make a snowman later. There’s going to be a snowman-making contest in town soon.
They get a call at the Sheriff’s office: somebody died. The old man looks frozen to death. Sam calls FBI agent Manners and asks if Jack Frost is really dead. Manners says it’s all fine and then talks to Stone, the guy from the chemical company, who knows exactly what happened.
Ryan goes outside and decorates the snowman that just suddenly appeared in their front yard overnight. Billy, the town bully, knocks the snowman’s head off. The bully is suddenly beheaded by a sled out of nowhere. Billy’s dad goes outside that evening and gets an ax through the head, butt-first. Jack the snowman decorates with Billy’s mother. Billy’s sister, Jill, was out with Tommy at the time and missed all the fun.
Sam goes to the station and finds Manners and Stone waiting for him. Stone says the creature can freeze and unfreeze at will; it can change shape. It melted, flowed under the door, and then it reformed.
Sam calls a town meeting to announce a curfew. As he talks, Paul Darrow beats on the door to come in; he’s screaming about a killer snowman. Manners knocks him out before he tells anyone the full story. Deputy Pullman goes up the mountain to check out Paul’s place and runs into Jack on the road. Then Jack runs over him.
Tommy and Jill still don’t know about the murders. They break into Sam’s house to have sex, because who wouldn’t want to have sex in the sheriff’s kitchen? Jack comes in and shoots Tommy with icicles and bad puns. Jill decides to take a bath, and the water turns into… Jack!
Agent Manners wants to call in reinforcement, but there’s a big snowstorm coming in. Agent Stone says the company should be called in. Jack appears in front of all of them, so now they know what they’re up against and they barricade themselves inside the sheriff’s office.
They load up the corridor with spray cans and aerosols then shoot it, blowing Jack up. He immediately re-forms. Stone comes clean and tells the truth about what happened to Jack. He rolls in, and they all force him back with hairdryers into the boiler furnace. He melts away forever right?
Nope— he’s back again, and this time, he bites Manners’s head. Stone walks out and throws up— Jack was hiding inside him. They figure out that antifreeze will do the job, so Ryan and Paul go off to get some while Sam and Jack face off. Sam pushes Jack out the window into a pickup truck bed full of antifreeze.
The next day they bottle up the antifreeze from the truck and bury it. This must be the end of Jack Frost, right?
Commentary
There’s a lot of humor here. It’s got good production values and appropriate levels of acting. The jokes show they knew it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously but it wasn’t cheaply made or cheap-looking.
It gets sillier and sillier as it goes on, but it never gets boring and is a lot of fun. The puns get pretty thick at times, but it’s all good here. A very “cool” movie.