Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Pugsley Crew Reviews podcast. Today we are going to be talking about Jack Frost, the film that was released in 1997. It is not the one that was released in 1998, which has Michael Keaton as a snowman, Snow dad, but it's actually released the year before. It was, I think, straight to vhs.
Anyway, Kerr with us today again, as usual. How are you doing, Kerr?
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Hi. Yep, I'm all right.
I was going to say it's nice to watch a Christmas film, if you'd call it a Christmas film.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Well, it is set. Is it set? I don't even know if it's set at Christmas. I can't remember.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: No, there's snowmen. Yeah. It must be because the woman's got Christmas lights up in her house.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, it is. It's just like really wintry area anyway.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it's as Christmassy as Gremlins or diehard, so that'll do it.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And they are both Christmas films.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: There you go. And anyone who disagrees, send a direct message to Ker 9000 on twitter and argue with him, because I'm not on there anymore.
You've been good, man.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Been trying to get into the festive mood.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
Doing what exactly?
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Rabbit.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. How are you finding Christmas this year so far?
[00:01:44] Speaker B: It's all right.
It's for kids in it.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: It is, yeah.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: And you get older, walk in, buy what you want, whenever you want, if you've got the money.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
Christmas time, it's all about family in there. But Christmas has kind of been perverted into give me presents now kind of thing.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Hyper capitalist.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Exactly.
Saw the film Jack Frost. Had you seen this before?
[00:02:16] Speaker B: I don't think I had. I mean, I've watched so many old horror movies back in the day that they all interlap over each other, but it didn't stir any sort of memories.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I had no clue what it is. I remember seeing it back in.
Must have been when it came out on vhs.
There was a video rental store just over the road from me. Not literally over the road, but not far away. And I'm sure I saw in there and I've seen it on things before and I've typed in Jack Frost for something and it's come up with the image of this and I've always remembered it, but I've never actually seen the film. So I thought, what could we watch? Oh, something festive. But I know Kurz into horror, so why not Jack Frost?
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, why not?
[00:03:08] Speaker A: Exactly. And I'm going to start by saying I fucking loved it.
I fucking loved every minute of it because it's so stupid. You could clearly see it's low budget, but it's so funny and daft and over the top.
Great stuff.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: The guy that was the killer, I think he proper hammed it up and got into.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Definitely. Yeah.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: He's the highlight.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.
I was a big fan of him. The guy who said he was from the FBI, who wasn't.
I also really liked the scientist guy, but more towards the end, he was like a bit like, oh, no, we got it. But at the end he's like, he seems like, oh, this is my creation. And he started to get a bit weird, like, yeah, I need this as proof we can't destroy it.
And then he gets eaten, actually.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: But it also fills a horror like cliche, this in that the girl that ends up in the bathtub and shown naked, which there's often a gal in a horror movie that will, she's probably the most famous actor, actress in the movie.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Did you recognize her from anywhere?
[00:04:36] Speaker A: American Pie.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Exactly.
First thing I noticed is, and I can't tell you the actress's name.
I wouldn't have a clue. And I can't tell you what her character name was in American Pie either. But I was, that is the girl from American Pie. And between this film and American Pie, she's either developed a lot or had a tip job. Yeah, it was her, but flat Chester.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: You could tell in the face in like 2 seconds it was her.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Shannon Elizabeth, I think her name is.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: That's it. That's the one.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: But, yeah, definitely.
I would agree with that.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Well, it's like Jennifer Aniston got her start in the Leprechaun movie. First big film she was in. And then Leonardo DiCaprio got a big start in critters three as a kid.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Yeah. A lot of actors. Not a lot like. But there's a fair few actors who seem to start off in the horror stuff. I haven't watched all the Leprechaun films, but I have watched the first one and it is so unbelievably cheesy. It's great. I don't think the missus liked it, but I did. I enjoyed it.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: And we get Dafta.
If you like the dafter aspects of the nightmare on Elm street films, the films where freddy's more over the top and stupid, then Leprechaun is a great series to sort of segue.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: From there.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
The nightmare on Elm street series I actually think is awesome.
Obviously, the first one or two films I think are a lot more serious. Bit more like horror, horror with a bit of silliness to it, whereas I think after a while it just becomes fucking ridiculously daft.
But that's not a bad thing because it's genuinely great.
So with this film, you had an intro starts with a child, which I think is probably an adult making a child's voice, having a story told to them by the uncle who tells them the story about this guy who is murdering people because he's like, I want a scary and happy story, or something like that. And she's told then about this guy who's murdering people and how he's cutting them up into little bits. And then the reason why he gets found is because he didn't cut up enough of them and cut them up enough at one point and people found like years and bits of cheek in they tinned food and that's how they found him.
But don't worry, he's going to die tonight at midnight. But obviously he doesn't.
But I thought that was hilarious. I genuinely, genuinely laughed at the little kid being told a story, like, because you don't see the child and the adult.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: No.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: So it could be the same person just going, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
No, it's an interesting way to start it and it's something to have over the opening credits instead of just having a boring sort of trawler names in it.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: I think the film did feel very tales from the crypt creep showy. It had that, like, low budget but comic bookie humorous spin on horror.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. I couldn't disagree with you, actually, because it does feel like it could have been something from out of tales from the crypt, which is really good, by the way, and creep show, from what I've seen of it. I enjoyed that as well.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: But I think I prefer.
Don't know. They're both really good. Ignore me. But basically after the intro, it shows the guys in the back of a police transport getting taken to where he needs to be executed. I thought he'd be already there, but for some reason he's being taken there and he somehow manages to gather guard in the back, on the floor, under his feet, steals his cigarette. No idea how he managed that. But then it crashes, the truck does into another truck, which is carrying some sort of chemical. And he escapes and he's standing near there and he's like, ha, look, I'm free and I'm going to kill you to some guy, some cop guy, and all of a sudden he gets sprayed with his acid. And honestly, the way he melted was, I thought looked really good. Considering this low budget. I actually thought that looked pretty cool. And he melted fucking fast.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: That was a heck of an effect. That's probably the best effect in the whole film, I'd say. Yeah, because he melts in sort of stages, doesn't he? And you see a sort of deformed person to a skeleton to just a pile of ooze really. Yeah.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: And then he uses like weird CGI stuff to show his molecular structure combining with snow. And then he becomes, well, you don't actually see him for a while, which I think is good because sometimes horror shows it straight away. Maybe they did show a bit early, but compared to some films, but personally great.
So you don't see him for a while, just hear the sound of what must be the snow moving.
And then you just see the mother of the main character is the sheriff, his wife. Then he's like, oh, I like your snowman you built to the, to the kid. And the kid's like, I don't know what you thought about I'm built a snowman before actually that happens, they find a corpse, right? It's like an old guy who's dead sitting on a chair and the chair is rocking. And I'm like, well, why the hell is the chair rocking? And then the sheriff says to one of the deputies, why have you got your foot on the chair? Rocking the chair?
[00:10:54] Speaker B: I thought that was weird.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: It's brilliant. But it's things like that. Like one of the scenes later on in the film where the woman gets murdered by and wrapped around a Christmas tree.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: And the sheriff again, he's like, oh, take her down. And the guy says, oh, shouldn't we leave her up for the twelve days of Christmas?
[00:11:12] Speaker B: Oh, that got me. There is some witty one line stuff in this.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: It is, yeah.
But like the first kill, you don't see the kill, they just find a corpse. Because obviously it's like, oh, surprising what's happening here. You don't know what's happening. Do you know what's happening? No, you don't know what's happening. And then the second kill, it's a kid, and he's like picking on the child of the sheriff of some reason. The snowman kind of defends it by pushing the kid. And then the kid falls a ice skate goes over his head and cuts his fucking head off.
It's brilliant. It's just so daft.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: I thought for a brief second it was going to be one of them films where like a monster or criminal befriends a kid and kills everybody that's giving the kid shit. Just for every second. It felt it was going that way.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it did. I actually said to the misses, I was like, why is he helping that kid? Doesn't he want revenge against him and his father, that child, and not revenge against them? But he wants revenge against the sheriff, who is the son he was defending. Whose son he was defending. Sorry. And my thought was, if he wants revenge against him and he said he's going to kill him and his entire family, why is he, like, helping him? Sort of. But it just turns out it was like just a happenstance that you just killed the kid who was bullying him, but he didn't give a shit. He was just killing people. Yeah.
I liked it when they had the head in the bag. It was like in their weird. Like the way it was being carried. There was just blood dripping from it and it's like a big pool of blood filling up in the back.
Just like, whatever.
It's really fun.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
Pretty good for a low budget film.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: Yeah, they are.
It's a bit like cheesy with a snowman, the way his arms are and the way he moves and stuff. But the actual killings are really good.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: There are points where you can tell that the snowman is sort of a guy with big white oven gloves on. Yeah, definitely pushing them with the oven gloves.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: But like when the woman's heads repeatedly smashed into the bore balls, you can tell to a degree that's a doll.
But it's good. It works.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. It definitely does. And I thought that was a pretty brutal kill.
I was like, yeah, that was pretty cool. Because he's like smashing her face into the bobbles. The bobbles again, stuck in her face. And then he strangles her for a bit and then ties her to a tree.
No fucks were given.
I think the strangest death in there was the bathtub thing because I'm sure he rapes her to death.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: Which is just a bit, like, bit too far, I guess, sort of.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: Because when he dies, he goes, I guess this year Christmas came early.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: And then if you notice in the end credits, the stupid stuff wrote between things. And one of them says something about, guess where the carrot was during the bathtub scene.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: Jesus. I didn't notice that. I didn't notice the credit stuff. That's really cool.
Let's see. I didn't take a lot of notes again, because this is a problem. Some of the films, I'm like, nothing really to write, but I should be writing stuff anyway. And then other films, I'm start writing stuff, and then I'm just like, okay. I'm just enjoying the film, though. Forget to do it.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: This film did remind me of the 1989 film by Wes Craven, Shocker. Have you ever seen that?
[00:15:19] Speaker A: I do not know.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: It's a convicted convict who's supposed to be being killed in the electric chair. But when they put him in the electric chair and start electrocuting him, he essentially doesn't die and develops electricity powers.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: I might have seen it.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: So similar ground in it. A serial killer is going to be killed, but during the process gets superpowered. And I thought, maybe they've seen that.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe.
I'm not sure, though.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: This would have been six years or so after that. I can't believe that Michael Keaton film came out a year later and they used the same name.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Yeah. I wonder if anyone really, like, they knew about. They didn't care.
Probably didn't.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: We're, like, privileged now, the Internet, aren't we? Because if you're thinking of making something, if you're going to write a book or make a film, I think quite early in the stage, you'd get on Google and go, this is what I'm thinking of calling it. Does this exist?
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: And you get a hit back in 2 seconds and go, yeah, somebody else has called it that. Let's hit the drawing board again.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
Is there any particular deaths that you liked in this film or any particular lines? You more than likely got a quote for us?
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Well, I've already give it, but I love Christmas came early.
Just because I'm a fan of innuendos.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: And Christmas came early. Yeah, that was a good line.
[00:16:56] Speaker B: Maybe the best death was the woman being smashed into the bore balls and everything, though, because of the fact it carried on so long and had multiple parts to it.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: Yeah, it was rather brutal, to put it. To put it in a simple way, it was pretty bloody brutal because he smashed her face, tied her up, strangled her, just did a lot of violent stuff. I'm surprised that the first kill was, like, old guy who had no involvement, but then again, he was a serial killer who just seemed to kill random people, so I guess doesn't make a difference. But the first family targets is the one who was picking on the sheriff's kid, his son, and then they are family, and it's like, whoa, why?
[00:17:50] Speaker B: I mean, there's a lot of things they could have done. Like with that. You could have had it where he was killing people to turn the town against the sheriff. Because that made the dad sort of want to get the sheriff's son.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Initially I thought, oh, maybe he's going to turn around and become befriend the child. And then after the stuff that was happening with the father, arguing with the sheriff, maybe he's going to turn the town against the sheriff first. But that didn't happen. So it sets up a couple of things it could do, but then it just goes, now, fuck that, we're just going to kill people. Which a horror film, that's fine. It doesn't need any deep thought inducing stuff. It just needs fun, Moida. And that's what it had.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: I mean, it was good. It was an hour and a half and it proper did what it needed to do and didn't outstair its welcome.
[00:18:42] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Because some films feel they've got to add subplot upon subplot.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: Exactly. One thing I thought fort was quite fun in it as well is some of the murder scenes and some scenes in general where they were talking about dire shit happening. There'd be this jaunty fucking music playing.
It's like, what the hell is this jaunty like?
And it's like, seriously, like, what are you playing at? Why?
That woman being murdered, she had like this really wholesome fun music playing. And it's like, why?
[00:19:25] Speaker B: I just think they were trying to balance the mood, weren't they? Were trying to stay to that comedy horror side. It seems like go too dark.
[00:19:36] Speaker A: He definitely didn't.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: I think with the effects and like the snowman, I'll say suit. Because a lot of it seemed like it was a suit. They knew you weren't going to really take it seriously and be like filled with terror.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: It had to straddle the comedy aspects.
[00:19:56] Speaker A: Yeah, well, with the Jack Frost poster, then the VHS cover, the dvd cover, whatever. It's like a really horrific looking snowman with like glowing green eyes. And it kind of looks like a Scully, like a skull. A Scully, not. Nor a Scully from X Files. Like a skull, like snowman face with big sharp teeth.
But the snowman looks nothing like that. The snowman's like really round and he's just got angry eyebrows.
Apart from one scene, he's got angry eyebrows.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: That's like games and films of the past.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: Often I think they were designed the covers to films and games and stuff were designed by people who had no aspect of what the product was really like. They were just told, draw something cool and doesn't necessarily represent the real film.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Exactly.
Because there was quite a lot of this film that I enjoyed. I'm just trying to think of exactly what to say about it because it was a good film.
I found it surprising that the way they killed the snowman. Right, the evil snowman. The way they killed him was by putting antifreeze on him like boil. Drowning him in antifreeze. Yeah, that's cool.
What I thought was funny is the way they found out that antifreeze works. They melted him.
They blew him up. That didn't kill him because he just reassembled. They trapped him in a furnace. That didn't work.
They then drowned him in antifreeze, which did work. But the way they found out was because the child of the sheriff gave him, like, I know, some chocolate thing. Slop it looked like. And like, oh, I didn't want you to get cold, daddy. I wanted you to be nice and hot. So I put antifreeze in it. Like he would have fucking died.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: Yeah, that was weird. And there's the fact in the dad nearly threw it away halfway through the film and then clearly felt guilt and got it back.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Exactly. This was. Saved his life. Who would have known that that scene would have been so foreboding? Because I didn't. I didn't think much of it. I just thought, oh, it's just clearly his kid have made him something and he feels bad chucking it in the bin.
Good thing. How the fuck didn't the mother see him put an antifreeze in it?
[00:22:27] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: Be fine, chuck antifreeze in it. He won't die. You'd enjoy it.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: It reminded me there's that Simpsons episode in the way Bart goes to France and they're putting antifreeze in the wine to make it more potent. And they're giving it Bart to see if he goes blind or not.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: I can't remember that. I have seen a lot of Simpsons.
[00:22:50] Speaker B: But Simpsons, it's like the first three or four seasons, I think, right? A very old one.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I've probably seen it, actually. Used to watch it religiously, but my memory is awful.
Proper terrible.
Is there anything else you would like to say on the film then? Because I can't think of much else to say even though I really enjoyed it.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Well, we've got next year's Christmas special lined up, haven't we? Because there's Jack Frost too.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. That was my thoughts.
Jack Frost and then we can watch the other Jack Frost and to say how crap it is in comparison to these ones.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: There's a 2020 Jack, I think it's called the cursor Jack Frost horror film, but it's not a snowman. It looks like a demon made of ice. So we're set up for a few years.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely a couple of Jack Frosts every year.
Yeah, but anything you would like to add about the film?
[00:23:56] Speaker B: No, just if you like funny stuff and you're not sort of snobby about budget, you'll enjoy it. It's not going to change your life, but it's a good use of an hour and a half if you're into b movies and you got a sense of humor and you like quippy one liners.
[00:24:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree.
It is a very good and fun film. I really enjoyed it from start to finish. Like I said, even the intro I thought was fucking brilliant. Just genuinely funny with the hool telling the kid of a serial killer who was getting his come up on Star night.
Brilliant. But yeah, it's really good. Well worth checking out. It is both funny. The kills are great. It's not at all scary.
But then I don't really find things, films and stuff scary, personally, but it's well worth checking out if you can get it. It's probably not expensive. You can grab it on probably dvd or something. Probably. I wouldn't know exactly. It's on YouTube actually, isn't it?
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Yeah, the whole thing's on YouTube. Weirdly. I looked on Amazon, if you could rent it and it's not on there, but number two is.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: Second one's on there, but the first one isn't. Yeah.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: Which is bizarre. Really?
[00:25:21] Speaker A: Yeah. That is stupid.
Bloody Amazon. Pull your fingers out. Is there anything you would like to plug before we end?
[00:25:33] Speaker B: Not really. Just my YouTube channel's there and there's lots of stuff on there and hopefully there may be my big end of year special on there on New Year's Eve. Fingers crossed.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: Yeah. I hope that all works out, man. Sounds like it's going to be a nice one to sit down and watch with lots of interesting stuff.
Hopefully lots of telling the Tories to fuck off every month. Every month. Fuck off, Tori. Fuck off, Tories.
Well, that is going to be us.
We'll be back. I don't know what's going to happen, fortnite. Probably only because Christmas is coming up. Like, I haven't even recorded. Got anything sorted for the game one because Christmas is coming up and it's not because everyone keeps saying no, it's not because of that. It's just because it's Christmas coming. So probably what I'm thinking of doing is maybe doing the next film in three weeks and the next game in two weeks. So then the weeks have changed then though. But it means that there's a break over the holiday period. Yeah, I'm not sure what I'm doing there, but for everyone who wants to check out video game podcast, there's Peds's game Shack Kurz featured on there on several episodes and other guests as well. We will be back in two or three weeks. I'm not sure exactly, but take care everyone.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and Happy holidays. For those who don't celebrate Christmas but celebrate other religious bollocks.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: Merry Christmas all. Yeah, happy holidays.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: Yeah, bye bye bye.
Christmas is bollocks too.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Well, yeah, like, looks like Christmas came a little early.
