With Thanksgiving in the rear view, lots of us are getting into the Christmas spirit. Besides decorating and playing carols, holiday classics like Elf, Home Alone, The Grinch, and Die Hard will be playing in homes across the tritown area. And, of course, we can’t forget the ’60s animated classic Frosty the Snowman.
But what if there was a movie just like Frosty the Snowman, but the snowman turned out to be a hot guy? Wouldn’t that be something?
Unfortunately, we live in a reality where such a terrible movie exists.
A movie that is literally called Hot Frosty.
Netflix unleashed Hot Frosty upon the world on Wednesday, November 13 (proving that Fridays aren’t the only unlucky days). The film is about Kathy, a widow whose depression over her husband’s death two years prior has caused her to neglect the restaurant that she owns (Kathy’s Kafe) and her home maintenance. To lift her spirits, Kathy’s friend that runs the local used clothing store gives her a red scarf “destined to bring her happiness.” Kathy passes by a snow carving competition and ends up putting the scarf on a snowman. And you’ll never guess what happens next…
The idea isn’t terrible, but the execution is right from the second that scarf hits the snowman. In the original Frosty story, the snowman comes to life but is still made of snow and looks like he did before he came to life. In Hot Frosty, the snowman becomes an actual naked guy–flesh, blood, and anotomically correct. It’s weird, but it’s magic, so whatever. After breaking into the used clothing store and dressing himself (which he doesn’t have a reason to do because he never gets cold because snowman), he seeks out Kathy because she was the last person he remembered seeing before he came to life… but how can he remember something from before he came to life?
It may have been a fool’s errand to hope a film with the prestigious title of Hot Frosty would make sense, but this film has the stupidest conflict: the snowman, who gets named Jack (Like Jack Frost! Get it?), can’t get too warm or he’ll die. This is, understandably, the same plot as the original Frosty tale, but the conflict makes sense there because he is made of snow. Jack is man, and while his chiseled abs and playful smile may melt some hearts, he himself can’t melt. The plot device to keep him cold the entire time can’t be taken seriously, but since that’s the main conflict, it brings down the entire movie.
Another letdown in the movie is the performances. While there are talented actors involved, they had little to work with. The characters were boring and had generic personalities: the dumb hot guy, the overstressed businesswoman, the tough-as-nails cop and his wacky partner, the old lady who crashes her car at the sight of a shirtless man.
While Lacey Chabert of Mean Girls fame (and if you forgot she was in that film, don’t worry: this movie reminds you) does pretty well, Dustin Milligan was a horrible choice for Jack. While he captures the fish-out-of-water innocence of a snowman just brought to life, that’s his only emotion–the character may actually be made of snow, but Milligan acts like he’s made of cardboard.
The relationship between Kathy and Jack is forced and unrealistic, as there is no catalyst or transition between Kathy being unsure about Jack and… falling in love with him? It’s unclear because, while Kathy says she loves Jack by the end, her tone and body language say otherwise. Ironically, this movie could have been better by being longer–the love story (like the rest of the movie) is rushed and doesn’t let anything develop, almost as though the movie wants to end as much as the audience does.
The rest of the cast is fine. Craig Robinson plays Sheriff Nate the same way he plays every one of his roles. As Deputy Ed, Joe Lo Truglio is basically his character from Brooklyn Nine-Nine but with a mustache. Katy Mixon, who plays Kathy’s neighbor Dottie, is downright annoying as the busybody next door. None of the performances are bad, but none of them rise above an actor giving a first take.
The visuals were mediocre and weren’t visually pleasing. There is some weird-looking CGI (don’t worry, the guy doesn’t actually melt, though that would have made at least part of the film interesting), the snow looked very fake, and the soundtrack was littered with odd covers of Christmas classics.
The film was directed by Jerry Ciccoritti, a Canadian director who made grindhouse-style horror in the 1980s and mostly tame made-for-TV projects, including the Hallmark Original Movies Turkey Drop and Two for the Win. While it looks like he’s done interesting work with depth in the past, there isn’t a single directing choice in this film that isn’t out of the Hallmark Original Movie playbook. The same goes for the script by Russell Hainline, a newcomer to Hollywood who has already written five other Christmas rom-coms.
Ultimately, there is no reason to watch Hot Frosty over any of the hundreds of other holiday rom-coms that use these same characters, plots, and jokes unless you 1) want to see a shirtless guy run around in the snow for a good part of 90 minutes or 2) you like watching bad movies that make you angry. This isn’t the worst Christmas film, but like so many films across so many genres lately, it takes a premise that could be interesting and squeezes out anything original.
Hot Frosty will never be a classic like the original Frosty the Snowman because it does nothing new and doesn’t stand out from a crowd of direct-to-streaming mediocrity. Maybe I’m wrong… after all, Hot Frosty became the most streamed movie on Netflix the week of its release and is still in the Netflix top ten. Maybe Hot Frosty does just enough to set itself apart. But after watching Violent Night, Spirited, Candy Cane Lane, Ex-Mas, Single All the Way, and How the Gringo Stole Christmas shoot to the top of viewership charts over the past three years and seeing that now they are all but forgotten, I’ll put my money on this film melting from everyone’s memories in a few weeks.
