There are movies about snowmen who come to life through magic so that they can play with all of the happy little children and then there's Jack Frost. Jack Frost is a movie about a snowman - a mutant killer snowman to be exact. At the time this flick came out, I was working at a local video store. A-Pix Entertainment sent us some promotional hologram cards that showed Jack Frost "the happy snowman" turning into Jack Frost "the psycho snowman with razor-blade teeth." (I still have those holograms actually, and it's a good thing too, cuz they were too cheap to reproduce them for the eventual DVD release of the film.) As you can imagine, I was already sold on the film being one of the greatest horror-comedies of our time. The day we got the movie in, I put it on and was happy to see that A-Pix hadn't let me down... this truly was a cheesy independent masterpiece. But we'll get into the details of the movie soon enough.

First, I'd like to share a quick gag with you that I would play on our video store customers. For any of you other there that work in a video store or who have friends working in a video store, I suggest you write this down. Shortly after the killer snowman version of Jack Frost came out, Michael Keaton's happy "Jack Frost" family movie came out. The timing was just too perfect. Two movies with the exact same title yet two very different plots. So the gag is pretty simple. Take any copy of the killer Jack Frost movie and put it inside the box of the Jack Frost family movie. Just imagine the faces of the kids as they watch the happy snowman killing people left and right all because the parents assumed what they rented was a family movie. The gag was easy and parents did come in to complain about how they rented the wrong movie and it scared the shit out of their kids. So yeah, get to work all of you video store hooligans!

Now, let's get started with my in-depth look at Jack Frost. It all starts in Snowmonton...

So Jack Frost is your basic serial killer who evaded the law for years and years all while killing a good number of people. But now he's been caught in the town of Snowmonton, also known as "The Snowman Capitol of the Midwest" - even though the place doesn't really exist. Damnit, it should exist though shouldn't it? Somebody build me a town called Snowmonton and I"ll come visit it I swear. Anyway, Jack is riding in the back of a state execution transfer vehicle and come midnight they're gonna give him the chair. The guard who is in the back with him doesn't wanna share a cigarette with Jack. Didn't anybody ever teach him to share? Well, Jack sure did just now by crushing the guy's windpipe underneath his boot. 'Tis the season...

Soon enough, the prisoner transfer vehicle collides with an oncoming genetic research materials truck and Jack Frost is jettisoned out the rear-end. It looks as though he's going to get away and start a new killing spree all over again when the fire from the accident causes the genetic liquids to burst right into Jack's face.

After some overacting, Jack's melted body collapses into the snow. Personally, I would've taken the chair over being slowly melted by an untested acidic solution, though I suppose he didn't have much choice in the matter. But, this isn't the end of ol' Jack. You see, after his flesh is done melting, his blood is actually absorbed into the snow - and through some superb cartoonish animation, we see actually his molecules combine with the snow.

Yep, Jack is now a new life form. And by the looks of it, that life form is a writhing person in a white blanket under a pile of snow. But hey, let's cut the director some slack... they were obviously working with a very low budget here. So yeah, I don't see a guy under a blanket there do you? Nope, all I see is snow that's magically moving as if it had a life of its own! Wow!

Flashback time. As I said before, Jack Frost was a successful serial killer for a few years until he got sloppy and a small-town sheriff by the name of Sam happened to catch Jack while he was taking a piss. Jack was quickly convicted and sentenced to death, but he promised sheriff Sam that he'd come back. "I'LL FIND A WAY! I'LL TEAR YOUR TOWN APART! I'LL KILL YOUR FAMILY! I'LL KILL YOU! YOU'RE DEAD!!!" Chilling words from a cold-blooded killer in a winter wonderland named Snowmonton.

Now Sam is a simple man. He lives a simple life in a simple town. He's got a simple wife, and a son who... well... a son who is simply insane. He comes off as one of those kids who have been so pampered in life that they weren't even allowed to watch an episode of Double Dare because it was too risqué. In his spare time, he enjoys cooking everything he can find in the kitchen (and elsewhere) to make treats for his family to eat. Well, they don't actually eat the stuff, they just smile and nod and try to humor the kid while probably wishing they had just gotten a dog instead.

Snowmonton may be "The Snowman Capitol of the Midwest" but it sure doesn't have a lot of snow. In fact, it looks as though the place is really "The White Plastic Shavings Capitol of the Midwest" if you catch my drift. Most of the snow you'll see in this film is fake. Again, I'm sure filming in a place with an abundance of real snow was a bit much for the $57.36 budget that this movie had. Anyway, everybody is preparing for the snowman building competition and it is here that we meet some of the good townsfolk. First, there's Jake and his wife. While his wife is always happy with her head in the clouds (because she's completely insane), Jake seems to be pretty damned miserable. Then there's their two kids Billy and Jill. Billy is basically the local bully who thinks he's a complete badass - in other words, this is a horror movie and that means he's going to die. And yep, Jill is played by Shannon Elizabeth before she became famous for her part in the "American Pie" movies. Sadly, her role in this movie is worthy of more respect than her later ones. There's also Tommy, who plays the horny teenage guy" role as he builds a snowman (er plasticshavingsman) with breasts. He's also got a great joke.

"Hey sheriff, what's the difference between snow men and snow women? SNOW BALLS!"

Hilarious. The other guy we meet is Paul. He seems to be the guy who carries all the supplies that the town needs to handle snow. Snowshovels, salt, ammo, the works. Throughout the entire movie, he's constantly giving a sales pitch to everybody promising to give them "20% off!" on all merchandise. Work those rubes Paul, work 'em!

Back at the sheriff's office, Sam is greeted by his secretary Marla. She has a grim look on her face. "What'd somebody die?" Sam asks, and then she holds up a note that simply reads: "SOMEBODY DIED." Man, I bet every successful person in the business world wants a secretary that is detail-oriented like that. That must be what they pay Marla the big bucks for. It turns out Old Man Harper was killed sometime last night. There were no footprints in the snow and no sign of a struggle, but his neck was clearly snapped back. I wonder who or what could've caused this?

Back at home, Sam's wife returns with some groceries and notices an unfinished snowman sitting in their driveway. She pulls out some carrots for her son Ryan so he can go give that snowman a proper face. Actually, it's really just a ploy to get him the hell out of her kitchen so the little bastard iron chef doesn't make any more messes. All is going well as he works on his snowman until Billy the bully shows up.

He tells Ryan to move out of his way so he can go sledding and then slices off the head of his snowman. But hey, what goes around comes around. The snowman (ie: Jack Frost) comes to life and knocks down Billy just as one of his friends is riding by on the sled. The sled blade is headed straight for Billy's neck and...

Thwap! It's off with Billy's head in an instant. "Holy Moly! Ryan killed Billy!" one of the other kids on the sleds screams in terror because he obviously didn't see Jack Frost come to life and trip Billy. The director show some real class here too as we see a shot of Billy's head being carried away by the coroner in a bloody bag separate from the body. It's the little details like that which make all the difference. Billy's father Jake starts arguing with Sam about how his kid is "touched by the devil." Nobody believes Ryan's story about the killer snowman. "I didn't do it, the snowman pushed him!" Sure he did Ryan... sure he did.

Later that night, Jake gets in an argument with his daughter, Jill. It's a very intense.

Jill: "Jesus dad, I loved Billy!"
Jake: "Do not be forsaking the lord's name in my house little girl!"
Jill: "The lord forsook this house long ago!"

Ooooooh! That shut his ass up real quick. Daaaaaaaamn. Time to go cool off, Jake.

After that heated argument, Jake goes out for a smoke and meets up with good ol' Jack Frost. Jack asks him for a smoke and Jake responds by wielding an axe, ready to chop down this "christ-loathing dog" as he calls him. From now on I'm going to call all my enemies "christ-loathing dogs", it has a nice ring to it, yes? Well, Jack shoves that axe into Jake's face... handle-side first! Definitely not the kind of typical axe-killing you'd expect from a psycho snowman. And then we here one of Jack's many great one-liners: "Hey, I only Axed you for a smoke!" He's already giving Freddy Krueger a run for his money here.

Jack then trickles his way inside the house to kill off Jake's wife. Being a big fan of the festive holiday lights that she is, Jack decides to make her part of the festivities. First he chokes her with a string of colored Christmas lights. Sure, I would have preferred my all-time favorite, bubble lights, but when it comes to killing... I guess any lights will do.

Then, to add insult to injury (or just injury to injury), Jack shoves a glass ornament into her mouth and then smashes her jaws shut on it. Obviously, she still isn't in a very festive mood, so he repeatedly shoves her face into a box of the ornaments.

Ah! There we go! Now she's really in the holiday spirit! Earlier in the film she told her husband that she always dreamed of being the angel on the Christmas tree. Well honey, your dream has come true thanks to a mutant killer snowman by the name of Jack Frost. I hope you'll be nice enough to at least send him a Christmas card to say thanks.

After one of Sam's deputies finishes making bad jokes about the dead body ("You don't reckon we should leave her up for the 12 days of Christmas?") while eating Pez candy from a snowman dispenser, the sheriff heads back to his office and meets up with the FBI badass-wannabe named Agent Manners. I'm sorry, you can act as tough as you want, but it's not gonna be all too convincing while you're wearing a turtleneck. He's basically a guy who has a big "holier than thou" attitude towards all of the people in town. Nice manners, agent Manners. Anyway, him and his pal "Agent Stone" are tracking the murders because they're convinced it's Jack Frost. They test a puddle of water that was left on the ground at the murder scene and it's just as they thought - this thing is able to latently alternate its elemental structure! Er, he can change from snow to a puddle of water and then re-freeze himself again. That's how he got inside the house to kill Jake's wife.

Speaking of being able to melt at will, Jack Frost catches the wise-cracking deputy off guard on his way back to the crime scene. The deputy goes to get a shovel from his trunk to move the snowman off the middle of the road, but when he returns, all that's left is the stop sign in a puddle. Jack re-freezes himself inside the deputy's car and then runs him over. Yeah yeah, I know... "Snowmen don't have feet! How could he step on the gas!?" Well, snowmen don't usually have arms or homicidal impulses either, but that didn't stop them from making this movie now did it? Shaddap.

NOW THAT HE HAS A POLICE CAR, WILL JACK FROST TURN OVER A NEW LEAF AND BECOME A MUTANT CRIME FIGHTING SNOWMAN OF JUSTICE? WILL HE DIE IN A HORRIFIC SNOWMAN DRAG RACING ACCIDENT? OR WILL HE JUST KILL OFF SOME MORE INCREDIBLY BAD ACTORS?

CONTINUE TO PAGE 2 TO FIND OUT!

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