Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Jack Frost 2: Revenge Of The Mutant Killer Snowman (2000)



Some folks think Halloween is the holiday that is filled with horror and frights. But the rest of us know the scariest holiday of all is Christmas. I shake with terror at just the thought of hearing “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” or trying to find a parking space at the mall in December. And Christmas is the holiday with mutant killer snowmen. So there.

In Jack Frost 2: Revenge Of The Mutant Killer Snowman, scientists try to bring Jack Frost back to life. Why? Who knows? They have trouble with their task, and it takes a clumsy janitor to knock the right ingredient into the tank. The janitor is rewarded with death, as the tank explodes. Apparently, Jack Frost escapes in liquid form down the drain.

By the way, the opening scene of this film is great, with Sam telling his psychiatrist about Jack Frost, while several people listen in from the other room and laugh, causing the psychiatrist to laugh as well.  I imagine that sort of thing happens all the time. If I worked as psychiatrist or psychologist, I’d want to share my patients’ hilarious madness with others.

Anyway, Sam and his wife go to an island for Christmas to attend a friend’s wedding. Jack Frost knows about this, and travels across the ocean, stopping at a raft to kill a couple of guys who have a carrot. One of those guys is played by Doug Jones, by the way. A very cool cameo appearance.

The carrot then washes ashore and talks about the party it sees. When folks at the party start singing “Jingle Bells,” I want them to die and to die quickly. But instead the carrot goes and kills a few girls on the beach.

Yes, this is a very silly movie, and it is played for comedy as much as horror. Those who work at the resort decide the girls’ deaths are the result of a shark attack so as not to alarm anyone (sort of the opposite of the way things are handled in shark movies). Jack Frost then takes the form of several ice cubes. And when a model rubs one of the ice cubes on her tits to make them hard, the ice cube says, “God, I must have been a good boy this year.”

Jack Frost soon brings winter to the island, so all the guests have a snowball fight. Jack Frost gets in on the fun, but his snowballs kill people, leading Sam to comment, “It’s another holly jolly Christmas.” Indeed.

This is one of those horror films where the killer has more personality than any (or indeed, all) of the other characters. I love it when Jack Frost says, “Let me explain to you the inherent dangers of unregulated genetic experimentation.”

Later in the film a snowball hatches, and we get a little baby killer snowman, which is just fucking great. And then suddenly there are lots of them, having a grand time (think Gremlins, or perhaps Critters). And during the closing credits there’s a good joke on all those dubbed Japanese monster movies.

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