WATCH THIS DRUNK: Jack Frost (Michael Cooney, 1997)

How in the hell do I judge a movie about a killer snowman?  A review like this really just becomes a glorified series of bullet points that lists things that happened, because, let's be honest, there are only two possible responses to Jack Frost.  Option one: "Of course it's stupid, it's a movie about a killer snowman!"  Option two: "Of course it's awesome, it's a movie about a killer snowman."  A killer snowman brought to life by the fusion of a serial killer named Jack Frost (Scott MacDonald) and a pile of snow; they're fused together thanks to a truck full of genetic research.  What kind of research could fuse a man's organic matter with frozen water?  Why, the genetic kind, of course.  It's not like this is rocket science.  It's genetic science.  Much easier.  So, do these kinds of details result in a movie that's so-bad-it's-bad or so-bad-it-rocks?

Neither.  Jack Frost is a disheartening movie, not because it's stupid, but because it never becomes transcendentally stupid, or gloriously stupid, or jaw-droppingly mind-bustingly adverb-crutchingly stupid.  Oh, it's promising, especially in the first half hour.  The flick names its killer Jack Frost before he turns into a killer snowman, and Jack terrorizes the cozy town of Snomonton, which, when you think about it, is less subtle than naming a goblin-filled town "Nilbog."  Jack's attacks on the citizens work as a random kind of vengeance designed for Sam (Christopher Allport), the local sheriff that caught Jack and doomed him to death row.  The gory-cheap deaths culminate with a preposterous scene when Jack decides to murder a bully, accomplishing said goal by running a sled over the kid's neck.  Somehow that action propels the bloodless dummy head about eight feet in the air.  Trust me: that's a thing that happened.

After that, the film never gets any more outrageous, though not for lack of trying.  It's my duty, as someone who's watched Jack Frost, to point out that this film features the titular snowman raping a titular Shannon Elizabeth in a shower.  She grabs the curtain and falls to the floor in a weird homage to Psycho.  Yes, another thing that happened.  It proves the endurance of Hitchcock's images that even a movie about a killer snowman stops tape to nod his way...right before Jack deploys a one-liner: "Guess Christmas came early this ear."  Uhfgh.  That's one of a stream of quips from Jack; they miss more often than they hit, although I liked when he hastily re-assembles himself in the third act and shouts, "Look ma!  I'm a Picasso!"  I chortled, and I'm not a man who chortles often.

Jack's jokey attitude to killing hurts the flick not just because it isn't hilarious, but because it makes the movie too clearly a comedy.  I know, I know, it's a movie called Jack Frost, but I think campy horror works better when its comedy comes at a right angle to serious story elements.  By the end of Jack Frost, the music settles into goofy mode, and nobody seems too bothered by the whole "countless murders" situation.  I wish the flick tried for sincerity instead.  I think that would make it funnier.  One of my favorite bits in the film is an exchange between Shannon Elizabeth and her father:

"Don't be forsaking the Lord's name in this house, little girl!"

"The Lord forsook this house long ago!"

That's a thing that happened, and it's a good thing, too.  That tin-ear approach to serious melodrama would've made this flick more fun.  It would've given the absurdity something to push against.  Evil Dead II is funny because Ash is terrified by the demons attacking him.  If he treated their goofy-ass pranks like nothing more than goofy-ass pranks, the structure would crumble due to a lack of foundation.  Dead/Alive functions in the opposite way.  The zombies are ravenous and relentless, but Lionel keeps forcing them into a proper upper-crust lifestyle.  Balance.  Jack Frost feels too imbalanced, too self-consciously "funny," especially in its latter half, to be all that funny.  It's an Abbott and Costello routine without Costello.  If that's too old a reference for you, Jack Frost is Pinky and the Brain without the Brain.

As for rating the flick.  I watched Jack Frost with a solid buzz, but I was alone.  I figure to appreciate this movie's high points - and there are some high points - one needs to be drunk and, more importantly, among friends.  In that spirit, I think it'd be unfair for me to give me my alone-but-buzzed...

RATING: C+

Now, that's my official rating, but Jack Frost is a special case.  If I were buzzed and with friends, I would've probably given the experience a...

RATING: B

And if I were alone and sober, I would've stopped halfway through and re-watched Black Christmas.