Crew
Director/Screenplay – Michael Cooney, Producers – Jeremy Paige & Vicki Slotnick, Photography – Dean Lent, Music – Chris Anderson & Carl Schurtz, Visual Effects – Sota Digital, Makeup Effects – Sota FX, Inc. (Roy Knyrim & Jerry Macaluso), Production Design – Bryce Holtshousen. Production Company – Storyteller.
Cast
Christopher Allport (Sam Tiler), Scott MacDonald (Voice of Jack Frost), Eileen Sealey (Anne Tiler), Chip Heller (Joe Forsters), Marsha Clark (Marla), Ray Cooney (Colonel Hickering), David Allen Brooks (Agent Manners), Tai Bennett (Bobby), Ian Abercrombie (Dr Morton), Jennifer Lyons (Rose), Shonda Farr (Ashlea), Granger Green (Paisley), Melanie Good (Sarah), Doug Jones (Dave), Paul Hansen Kim (Greg)
Plot
Sheriff Sam Tiler is still haunted one year after the attack by the mutant snowman Jack Frost. He now goes on vacation to Hawaii. However, Jack Frost’s remains are dug up and it makes an escape, washing up on the beach of the same resort where Sam is holidaying. There Jack proceeds to claim a string of new victims among the holidaymakers present.
Jack Frost (1997) was an amusing Horror Comedy about a killer mutant snowman. It should not be confused with the other Jack Frost (1998) that came out around the same time, a family friendly film with Michael Keaton reincarnated as a snowman. Director Michael Cooney and most of the leads from Jack Frost make a return with Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman. There is the odd interesting other name present such as Doug Jones, just a couple of years before making a breakout in Guillermo Del Toro’s Hellboy (2004) and becoming a specialist in weird creature roles, who was then better known as a mime and contortionist. Here Jones has a negligible role as someone on a raft who sees their friend killer by Jack Frost.
I thought Jack Frost was quite amusing when I saw it back around 2007 – the premise had an entertainingly absurd silliness. I am curious as to whether this still held up. On the other hand, when it comes to watching the sequel in 2024, I found it irredeemably silly. I am not sure whether that is my tiring of having seen so many deliberately ridiculous horror comedies since then, whether it is usual sequel deterioration, or just my evolving tastes. I wonder if I would have reacted differently if I had seen Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman closer to when it came out or after I saw the first film.
Scott MacDonald voices Jack Frost like a bad parody of a Borscht Belt comedian – trying to do Freddy Krueger-esque one-liners with a voice that sounds like it is in the terminal stages of throat cancer. Jack Frost’s various despatches seem more like those in a Road Runner cartoon – a victim being crushed by an anvil-shaped icicle; a guy placing his tongue on a frozen pole and then having it torn off; a pair of tongs impaled in a girl’s eyes; a snowball fight where people’s limbs are splattered by the snowballs and heads impaled with icicles.
In the film’s most mind-boggling scene, the snowman transforms into an ice cube that model Megan Good uses to keep her nipples erect during a photoshoot – it even makes slavering noises as she places him inside her bikini top – before becoming the ice cube that she places in her iced coffee and blowing her head off as she drinks it, followed by the one-liner “I guess it was decapitated coffee.” Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowmanstarts to become extremely silly in about its last quarter where the plot contrives to create a horde of baby mutant snowmen, whereupon everything becomes a rehash of Gremlins (1984) with small creatures – some not very convincing puppets – running about causing mayhem.
Trailer here
Full film available here