Six years after Michael Keaton stepped down as the caped crusader and transitioned into a successful career as a dramatic lead in films like "Much Ado About Nothing," "Multiplicity," and "Jackie Brown," Keaton also starred in the heartwarming Christmas film, "Jack Frost." In this wildly depressing family fantasy film, Keaton plays a would-be rockstar named, you guessed it, Jack Frost, who tragically dies in a car accident on the drive home to spend Christmas with his family. Luckily, he's also the proud owner of a magic harmonica that resurrects his spirit into the body of a snowman, like the holly jolly version of Charles Lee Ray putting his soul in a Good Guy Doll in "Chucky."

Now, as a Snow-Dad, Jack Frost reconnects with his son, Charlie, and teaches him all the things he forgot to while he was alive, like how to play ice hockey and how to be a good friend. Unfortunately, winter comes to an end, Snow-Dad melts, and the family learns how to move on with Snow-Dad existing only in their memories. 

We hate to be the bearer of bad news, sequel hopefuls, but a "Jack Frost 2" is not happening anytime soon. The original "Jack Frost" was a commercial and critical failure, boasting a whopping 19% on Rotten Tomatoes. Not even a magic harmonica could conjure up a follow-up to this film. But the existence of "Jack Frost" is responsible for a very, very different sequel ... "Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman."

The Horror Of Jack Frost

The year before "Jack Frost" hit theatres, A-Pix Entertainment, Inc. put out their own direct-to-video movie called "Jack Frost'' that also included a man's soul inside of a giant snowman puppet. Except, the 1997 "Jack Frost" is about a snowman on a killing spree. 

The horror "Jack Frost" similarly involves a car crash, but this time the truck carrying serial killer Jack Frost crashes into a genetics research truck (yes, a genetics research truck), and the chemicals onboard mutate Jack, fusing him with the snow on the ground. However, he comes back as a killer snowman and takes revenge on the Sheriff who put him in jail, killing anyone else who gets in his way. For what it's worth, the horror "Jack Frost" has 7% on Rotten Tomatoes, the exact same score as the big-budget noir-thriller "The Snowman" from 2017. So how exactly did this schlocky snowman slasher get a sequel? It's all due to Keaton's "Jack Frost."

While the '97 "Jack Frost" was also a critical failure, it was a film that performed well in home-video rentals due to its absurd premise and the lenticular box cover art that shifted from a happy snowman to a terrifying snowman with fangs. After Keaton's movie was announced, people caught the similarities and the rumor mill began swirling that the film was inspired by the low-budget horror-comedy (it wasn't). But it put a movie about a killer snowman into public conversation, which only increased the film's popularity, leading to the production of "Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman."

The Only Jack Frost 2 Anyone Needs

1997's "Jack Frost" remains a Christmas cult classic, but few realize that "Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman" even exists. The film takes place shortly after the events of the first movie, with the survivors all taking a tropical vacation to a cabana far, far away, where there's no snow to be found. Unfortunately, some dummy spills coffee into the tub of antifreeze holding Jack's mutated snow self, and the caffeine wakes him up, allowing him to follow the crew to the tropical getaway. Now extra chemically mutated, Jack discovers that he can shoot lil' evil snowball babies that look eerily like the Snowgies from "Frozen 2" and "Olaf Presents." 

The sequel takes the already bats**t premise of the first and kicks it up to 11. I'll spare you the spoilers on how it ends, but I will say that super soakers filled with banana smoothies are involved.

Without the hysterical coincidence of Keaton's "Jack Frost" coming out the year after the low-budget horror "Jack Frost" and sparking the endless debate over which movie has the better snowman puppet (the answer is horror "Jack Frost," apologies to Jim Henson's Creature Shop) it spiked the latter's popularity enough to justify "Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman." Director Michael Cooney has long dreamed of making a "Jack Frost 3" with the snowman reaching Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man kaiju heights, but as of publication, there are no current production plans to make that happen.

Keaton's "Jack Frost" will likely never get the sequel treatment, but it at least gave us the gift of demented, evil, snowball babies.

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