subscribe to rss Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman (2000)
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JACK FROST 2: REVENGE OF THE MUTANT KILLER SNOWMAN
Review by Gnoll |
It’s been a while since we dropped in on our old
pal, Jack Frost. Last year, in fact, when we reviewed
the greatest Mutant Killer Snowman movie that shares
its name with a Michael Keaton family film ever to be
caught on film. This time, Jack’s back, and he’s
pissed.
Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman is a perfect follow-up to its predecessor, a guilty pleasure of a Christmas horror spoof that we reviewed here. You can either read that review for a recap, or we can sum it up in just a few words: Serial killer has his DNA fused with snow in a nuclear accident, goes on killing spree, is stopped with antifreeze. The same ridiculous tone that made the other one so fun is kept intact, and most of the surviving cast members are even back.
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Our film actually begins with the return of our
hero from the last movie, Sam, recapping the events of
the first film with his therapist while a secretary
and her mean little friends snicker in the background.
The shrink even violates his Hippocratic oath and
gives a little chuckle of his own when Sam tells of
how the killer was disposed of in the previous film.
Of course, a group of scientists has managed to get
a hold of the tainted antifreeze that contains the
soul of Jack and due to some lab glitches, brings him
back to life with a cup of hot coffee, where he
inadvertently kills a passerby. It doesn’t take long
for this to happen. I mean, usually horror sequels
dawdle around for a half hour or so before they
re-introduce the villain, but JF2 gets ‘er gone in the
first five minutes of the movie.
Sam, haunted by his past, hauls his wife (and
leaves his retarded antifreeze-oatmeal cooking kid
back at home, presumably) off to a tropical resort
paradise for a Christmas vacation. I mean, after all,
if there’s anywhere that’s safe from Mutant Killer
Snowmen, it’s the endless Summer, right? Right?
Of course, they arrive with other stereotypical
resorters: Three busty sorority girls (one blonde, one brunette, one redhead, of course); a gay fashion photographer and his calendar models; and of course, deputy Joe Foster and his soon-to-be-wife Marla from the last movie.
Meanwhile, two castaways are in a dinghy somewhere
in the middle of the ocean, and quickly become the
first victims of Jack’s rage of terror. You see, Jack apparently needs a raft to get to the aforementioned tropical island, despite the fact that he forms in water, so he shoves a carrot in the dudes and commandeers the vehicle.
Later that night, after a tiki party on the island,
the sorority chicks are sitting around a campfire
trying to divvy up the two monosyllabically-speaking
frat boys they just met, and the brunette portion of
the trio wanders off into the woods. Jack tries to
attack from above with icicles, but misses,
complaining that he’s out of practice. After a few
misses, he decides that a more effective method is to
form himself into a giant snow anvil and drop
himself on the girl’s head. He then makes quick work
of the redhead with some spikes from the ground, and
does blondie in with a pair of ice tongs through the
skull. He totally stole that death from a film some
friends and I made in high school.
20 minutes in, six dead. This is one of the best
sequels since Weekend at Bernie’s 2!
When the resort employees find the bodies the next
morning, the call upon the head of island security:
Agent Manners from the last film. He’s played
by a different actor (and wearing an eyepatch) this
time, but that’s quickly explained because of the fact
that his face was mangled like fresh roadkill in the
last film. He quickly learns that all communication
off the island has been cut, so he gathers the
resort’s staff and calls for a state of emergency. But
resident tour guide Captain Fun (yes, his
actual name) doesn’t think anything should stop out
tourists from experiencing a grand old time!
Elsewhere on the island, our calendar model is
posing with a surfboard while gay Asian dude takes
pictures. Jack sneaks in to get a better look, but the photographer tells the model that the “excitement has been lost”. Yes, the model’s headlights have burned out, if you know what I mean. She asks for some ice to remedy this problem, and, well, you can probably guess where this is headed. One ice cube (not O’shea
Jackson) POV shot later, and not only is her nipple
condition showing no noticable difference, but now
she’s asking for iced coffee. Models are so high
maintenance. After she crunches on an ice cube and
swallows it down, Jack detonates the model’s
head and then makes quick work of the photog, as
Polaroids fly to the ground showing him in various
stages of death. Probably deserved it, though. After
all, what kind of professional photographer shoots on
Polaroid Instamatic camera?
Captain Fun (man, I can’t believe I’m typing that without making a joke) comes up with a brilliant idea to draw Jack Frost out in the open, so he stages a costume party. Sam hears the voice of Jack and hauls off into the night in search of him. He mistakenly decks the resort’s manager, because he’s wearing a snowman costume.
Later that night, the other model, who apparently
hasn’t figured out that her two coworkers are pushing
up daisies, decides to take a little skinny-dip
in the pool. After a few laps, Jack decides to test
the water, and finds it too warm. He remedies this by
creating a layer of ice on top of the pool, so naked
girl gets caught under the frozen top and drowns. To
celebrate, Jack wanders in to the tiki bar, and now
that we’ve actually fully seen him in snowman form for
the first time in the movie, decides to chill out —
the entire resort. Next thing you know, Sam and
his wife are being awoken by snowball fights.
The two frat boys, unfazed by the fact that the
three sorority chicks they were about to score with
have assumed room temperature, decide to re-enact a
crucial scene from A Christmas Story involving
a metal pole, and Jack quickly puts the Flick
character out of his misery. Jack then takes care of a
few of the vacationers with killer snowballs and icicles, while Sam’s friends and family try to convince him that despite the fact that a dozen or so people are dead and it’s suddenly dropped 70 degrees, that he has nothing to worry about. Of course, that’s when Sam finally comes face to face with his tormentor.
Sam’s friends and wife barricade themselves into
their room, while Sam and Manners gear up to take out
Jack with antifreeze-filled Super Soakers™. The
stereotypical Jamaican barkeep tells them where they
can find drums of Antifreeze. They rig a trap for
Jack, a giant pit filled with the green stuff, which
Jack falls in and bubbles down to nothing. But wait!
There’s still a half hour left, and we sure as hell
don’t care enough about the few surviving protagonists
to see them romping around without conflict, do we?
You see, apparently, before the scientists
accidentally revamped Jack at the beginning of the
movie, they performed some special experiments which
gave him some resistance to his previous killer. Jack
rises from the pool, and he’s <1>pissed. He’s also
now able to cough up little killer snowballs that
hatch into mini-Jacks. Sam has gone catatonic in
response to this turn of events.
Within moments, Captain Fun is dead, and Sam’s wife
Anne purees the little bastard. But that doesn’t stop
the Ice Ice Baby, and Manners soon finds himself
surrounded by the mini-Jacks. This time, they
apparently do him in for good, but I guess if they
ever make a part three they might get yet another
actor to step in and play the rejuvenated version of
him.
Anne decides to play hero and organizes an effort
to round up all of the little snowball bastards. The
surviving cast members set out with sealable
containers to trap Jack’s killer spitballs, but that
turns out to be an exercise in futility. Through a
freak act in the tiki bar, Anne discovers that a
banana daquiri spells doomsday for the little buggers,
because, you see, Jack and Sam’s DNA apparently got
fused in the last film, and Sam is allergic to
bananas, so that means the snowbabies are too. The gang
gathers up scores of bananas and goes on a
snowball-killing rampage, but when Jack finds one of
his younglings clinging to life, he gets a little
teary-eyed and decides to extract revenge.
Jack offs a couple more people before Sam makes a
run in and fires a banana-arrow into Jack’s chest.
This time, there’s no fancy burial or anything else
insofar as much as a resolution goes. It’s just
closing credits. Oh, and some goofy setup for a
possible sequel, this time involving the snowman
getting really big or something.
As I said before, The original Jack Frost was a lot of fun, and this film is no different. In fact, JF2 may very well be better than the original. It even seems to have a slightly larger budget than its predecessor, at least in part supplied by Asahi Beer, which gets a ton of product placement here. The CGI is slightly more impressive than the effects in the first Jack Frost film, but that’s not saying much. The real fun is in the goofy script and lots of slasheriffic fun.
So if you’re looking for something a little bit different than your standard Frosty the Snowman fare, check this sucker out. Hell, make it a double-feature with the original!
jack frost is the best movie yet!!!! when was it made?
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