Post by No Personality on Mar 16, 2010 11:32:48 GMT -5
Just when you thought it was safe to be sheriff in a small hick-town with a killer on the loose, take a hot bath in a stranger's house, or sit outside in your rocking chair in the dead of a December winter... comes 1997's insanely popular direct-to-video schlock-a-thon, Jack Frost. C'mon- you know your friends saw it too. There were about a dozen-dozen copies of this thing in every Blockbuster Video in the country. People rented it for Christmas. They rented it for Halloween. Hell- they rented it for Thanksgiving and the 4th of July too. You may even remember it had that cool holographic cover too. Where it would shift from right to left. One image was a harmless snowman, the other was the evil snowman with razor-sharp teeth and scary green eyes you see above. Later that year, they did the same thing for William Lustig's Uncle Sam.
With something like that on the loose in the story, you can only imagine what was going on in that white forest of dead trees behind him. Well, since everyone's seen this already, I can't harm anyone by giving a few facts on the movie. Other than it's incredible accessibility in video stores, I think most everyone walked away from their viewing thinking- what did I just see? 13 years later, it's developed quite a reputation for itself as a king among Bad Movies. I'm guessing it's something of a spoof. Only without calling direct attention to specific slasher or monster movies in ripping off like-moments. Other than, perhaps, trying to resurrect the pretty dead at the time (except in Wishmaster) trend of the wise-cracking slasher / killer motif.
Well, this is also the most entertaining goofy intentionally-bad 90's horror movie to come along since Dr. Giggles or Troma's Cannibal! The Musical. And though both of those are superior, this one has the edge on light-hearted goofiness - with the exception of a couple bizarrely too-sadistic murders (the icicle human-dartboard and the human Christmas tree ornament). The whole town in Jack Frost is chock-full of amusing stereotypes. And after Halloween 5, I never thought a movie would be able to save the "bumbling cop" cliche from drowning forever. Not that I wanted to ever see it become a trend- instead it just pops up from time to time (maybe at most once every 8 years), but deputies here, Chris and Joe, are actually fairly likable supporting characters. In their brief appearences.
There are a lot of jokes and crack lines to be found in the movie. Hell, even the end credits is overflowing with them. Thankfully, Jack Frost isn't the only one joking around. Other than the deputies, Marla, the woman who answers the phone becomes a comic relief element in the movie, as well as a couple of government operatives- an FBI hitman type guy and one of those wacky scientists who wears suits instead of a white labcoat (thank God, this movie avoids the Dr. Frankenstein cliche, ala- 1985's Day of the Dead, where it got so out of hand it became nauseating). There's also some religious lampoonery. And a truly disturbing scene where the grief-stricken parents of a murder victim have a brief discussion about putting up decorations- even though their son was brutally killed hours before.
Speaking of those parents, I have to talk about them for a second. Husband Jake mentions the Lord and the Devil so many times in his remarkably short time onscreen, you get the impression that in the backstory- he married wife Sally because she was pure, virginal, innocent kind of thing. You get the picture. But without really knowing what she was like. Well... girlfriend got some issues. Now, I'm not talking Sybil's mother or anything like that but she sure isn't playing with a full deck. I might even hazard to guess that she's completely departing with reality. The first thing I always think is that she wasn't raised in a very loving home. Her kids are both juvenile delinquents (of varing degrees) and she has no control over them. But her relationship with her husband is also strained by how much she irritates him.
She's an older brunette variant on the sweet-as-pie Mom, very mousy in her behavior, in need of some Marsha Warfield style 'wake up call' therapy. Although, if she's already flipped, it wouldn't do any good. He's a real jerk. You know what he reminds me of? One of those annoying neighbors in a sitcom, living next door to David Seville or Clarissa Explains It All's dad or someone like that. One of those guys who were always involved in a competition to have the better lawn or garden. This guy's object of great pride is his Snowman. Because this town has a Best Snowman competition. Every year? Don't know. But he's got a thing about anyone touching the tarp cover tied over it. That's pretty much the most interest thing about him. So, now you can't blame me for reading touches of insanity into her.
Since at least 1978's Piranha, the government in these movies is always trying to develop some kind of bio super-chemical or bio-unkillable killer creature or plasma or an anti-terror mega terror-weapon to use in war or in times of end-of-the-world and it gets out to terrorize a small town instead. That's why they usually keep things like this a secret. In a slightly more serious movie, this kind of thing would be a real criticism of the U.S. government. Or I should say- in a more clueless movie, such as 1988's subpar remake of The Blob. Because very few of these movies really have the government's number (Richard Stanley's Hardware?). By the time Frost comes around, it had become such a joke in these kinds of movies. We don't get too much information. Just the lampooning alone of an explanation scene is enough of a novelty.
New Nightmare's (Nightmare on Elm Street 7's) Rob LaBelle does a good job being eccentric- at least in his speech patterns. Oh, and the way he kicks his feet after being violently elbowed in the face. He ends up being the spookiest thing about the movie. The excitement he has as he explains the amazing things Jack can do - following his genetic mutation after being doused with toxic chemicals. He's the ultimate nightmare portrayal of a scientist, barely more human than Alien's Ash. This guy doesn't care about people at all. On that level, Stephen Mendel's Agent Manners (whom Marla calls "Bad Manners;" yeah I thought that was clever) repeatedly bursts his bubble and represents the cold water splash of reality. Although- this is only to LaBelle's weird scientist. To everyone else, he's just an overly macho pain in the butt.
American Pie's Shannon Elizabeth has a tiny role as the movie's token slut. For all the semi-nude roles she plays, there's something about her that screams American apple pie-wholesomeness. Pleasent, neutral, non-offensive in any way. Which is probably the only thing I might have against her. Except that it's kind of interesting that despite that, she always used to take off all her clothes at a moment's notice. There was a moment during the main street scene where I could have sworn her character was making a pass at Christopher Allport's sheriff, Sam. She eventually goes for the hardware store owner's son, who's nothing more than a sad 90's cliche. Not exactly the football player type, but very much like it. In another movie he'd be the class clown / prankster stereotype I've been talking about so much. I don't like to say bad things about someone I don't know - even a fictional character - but, God this kid is boring.
That pretty much leaves us with Christopher Allport - Sam the Sheriff. Since his wife character doesn't really do anything in the movie, though I wouldn't go so far to say that's a weakness since the man has been the weaker character in dozens of movies. I could write at least one paragraph about the erotic reaction I got during the scene where Jack finally gets to have his revenge against him. Jack grows phallic icicle blades at will, anywhere on his body, and in this scene he sticks Sam with it. Yeah, there's a closeup of the wound with blood coming from it, but in the wider shot of Sam's reaction... it doesn't seem to hurt him at all. Rather, he just kind of rolls his eyes (or lowers his eyelids) and looks like he's fading away while Jack thinks he's killed him. All the while, Jack is whooping and "oh yeah!"ing.
Sam's my kind of sheriff. Other than being a pretty darned hunky older man (a friend of mine once implied I had a "Daddy" fetish, but this guy's a hundred miles away from my dad), he's very relaxed- not at all aggressive. Sort of like Roy Scheider's character in Jaws. The kind of guy who just wanted to get out of the big city. The townspeople have a few laughs at his expense, mostly about his ability to shoot a gun. And look at the way he raises his son. To think anti-freeze is non-toxic and make cookies with it. That would have been fun to watch. Maybe as a coda, if nothing else. If anti-freeze hadn't turned out to be their secret weapon to stop Jack the killer snowman... But Sam and Marla should have had their own spin-off movie / movie sequel. Jack's not that interesting. But the movie balances him out with the other characters. Jack Frost the movie's not always likely to make you grin. But it's actually one of the most professionally made low-budget spoofs I've ever seen.
