DVD Review: Jack Frost

Another year begins its slide into posterity. I suppose I should at least write up some resolutions that I can judiciously ignore throughout 2007. I will make my first resolution to do that — perhaps next week.

I recently watched Jack Frost on DVD — hey, there's a resolution right there: make sure to watch more GOOD horror movies. That resolution was easy to come up with. I made the mistake of listening to some Yahoo Group members' recommendations on this one and — wait a minute, there’s my second resolution: do not listen to film recommendations garnered from Yahoo Groups. My word, coming up with new year’s resolutions is easier than I thought.

While the script idea for a serial-killing snowman is a novel idea on paper, the execution of the story, which could have been on a par with Shaun of the Dead in its wit and visual humor, falls very short; and you can't blame it on low budget limitations, either. In the hands of a Corman or a Troma sensibility, low budgets spark creative direction with the use of cheap but imaginative set pieces and crisp scripting. That didn't happen here.

Whenever you try to combine the elements of comedy and horror, you have to decide where to take the story. Should it be a parody, a satire, tongue-in-cheek, or a mix of these approaches? What visual framing will convey your choices, and how will the characterizations and actions move the story along to highlight them, and keep the funny-bone chuckling and the shinbone trembling with fright? The decisions made for this film weren't good ones.

The film begins with demented Uncle Henry’s narration of a risque bedtime story for his young niece. How her parents let her near this wacko is anyone's guess. As he horrifies her with his age-inappropriate story, the camera moves slowly across ornaments on a Christmas tree, pausing to show the film’s credits written on each one. This, at first, novel setup loses its cuteness rather quickly as it drags on and on. Uncle Henry's nasty story sets up the introduction of Jack Frost as we cut to Jack being conveyed to his execution in a van aptly titled, with Troma-like subtlety, "State Executional Transfer Vehicle."

A sudden truck collision with the also aptly titled "Genetic Research" van shows the miniscule budget the movie was shot with as uninspired quick cuts cover up the lack of pyrotechnics. Jack gets doused with the genetic liquid and his molecular do-hickies merge with the stuff to create a wise-cracking, not very jolly, serial-killing machine made out of snow and a button nose. The scientific explanation later given by one of the company’s agents to explain this transformation is conveniently obtuse to the point of nonsense. I would have preferred a supernatural explanation here, as that, at least, would have been more plausible. Explanations are always more credible when you use the supernatural or religion, don’t you think?

Article Author: ILoz Zoc

Founder of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers (LOTT D), expiring writer of Zombos Closet of Horror Blog, and valet to Zombos, the noted B-movie horror actor (to his few remaining and decaying fans).

Visit ILoz Zoc's author page — ILoz Zoc's Blog