Jack Frost (1996)

What can be said about Jack Frost that hasn't been said already? Nothing....but that would defeat the whole object of even watching the damn thing. And if you haven't already guessed, this is the Mutant Killer Snowman and not the family one with Michael Keaton.

Good Snowman - Cute Little Hat.

Bad Snowman - Monobrow

Every B-Movie Horror Comedy needs a wacky type of "killer" - something that shouldn't instill any form of dread whatsoever into any rational human being. "Critters" had furry footballs, "Leprechaun" had an, um, Leprechaun, and "Red Dragon" had Ralph Fiennes. "Jack Frost" has a mutant snowman. You knew that from the cover though....well, kind of, as the the snowman in the film is not nearly as "terrifying" as the one on the cover.

So, our icy killer basically comes about in that b-movie cliche - serial killer being transported to prison, the conditions are treacherous and the vehicle crashes into a convenient lorry carrying some genetic material. Kaboom....the great thing about this genetic material is that it allows him to fuse with the snow on the ground.

Awesome!

So, what next? Yes, Jack goes on to terrorise a small town where the Sheriff that caught him lives with a series of inventive kills augmented by terrible special effects. This is the basic currency of films like this - how to kill and how to make it look. Of course, not every film has someone like Tom Savini to help with the inventiveness and realism. Everything looks so, well, fake.

And that's the point. It's been done purely for laughs. And it gets them in bucketloads. It even breaks the "don't kill children" rule by decapitating a young boy. And it probably has the very first "womena gets raped by a snowman in the shower" scene ever in a film. And almost certainly the last. Go on, guess what the carrot is used for......

All the while the sheriff and some FBI fodder are trying to work out how to kill......okay, it's antifreeze.

OR IS IT? There's a sequel....

As a sad footnote to this, Christopher Allport (who plays the Sheriff) actually died in an avalanche last year....that's just cruel irony.

5/10 (all marks for fun)