For a film with a title that sounds like an entry on Urban Dictionary, Hot Frosty is surprisingly light on sexual content. (This is for the best, for reasons that will be explained.) The naughtiness in this Netflix Christmas movie is confined to self-aware “shirtless moments,” where the audience is encouraged to ogle the male lead as he prances around a snowy town square or fixes a leaky roof or whatever with his pecs hanging out. He’s not bothered by the cold, you see, because he’s a snowman. Like, a literal snowman.
The film, functionally directed by prolific Canadian jobber Jerry Ciccoritti, hand-waves away this miraculous development as “the magic of Christmas,” which is fair. The magic of Christmas can do anything, as long as it’s happening in a picturesque burg where everyone loves Christmas and everything is perfect, except for the love life of a deserving woman whose biggest flaw is that she cares too much about this town and its people.
Star Lacey Chabert specializes in these sorts of characters: Her IMDb page lists 14 films with the word “Christmas” in the title, only one of which is a horror movie. She comes to this particular straight-to-streaming project with tongue planted in cheek – the only facial expression she can manage in this movie – as does the rest of the cast. The self-aware intentions behind Hot Frosty (seriously, ew) are clear in its casting, which includes Eastbound & Down’s Katy Mixon Greer as a doctor with an unwavering faith in Christmas miracles and reliable comedic supporting players Joe Lo Trugilo and Craig Robinson as the town’s unnecessarily punitive lawmen.
Specifically, Robinson’s sheriff character is hell-bent on sending somebody to jail for the crimes of streaking across the public way and breaking into a local thrift store to steal some clothes. Both were, of course, committed by Jack Snowman (Schitt’s Creek’s Dustin Milligan), the aforementioned frozen figure who comes to life after lonely widow/beloved diner owner Kathy (Chabert) places a magic scarf around his neck and wishes for male companionship. The snowman is cut – a conspicuously Michelangelo’s David-esque entry in the snow-sculpture contest Hot Frosty features in its first five minutes – and therefore so is his human form, in that dehydrated, “bulging arm veins and an eight pack” kind of way.
Where Chabert’s face remains placid, Milligan’s is all expression, and he really is trying his hardest to bring a slapstick sensibility to an absurd role as… well, there’s no other way to put it but to quote 30 Rock: The (snow)man is a sex idiot. (He’s also kind of a puppy, in the sense that he might die if he’s left in a hot car too long.) On top of the type of amnesia that only exists in the movies, Jack is childlike – naive, trusting – to the point where it’s arguably unethical for a full-grown adult to become romantically involved with him. And so much of the film’s tension comes from the uncomfortable anticipation of waiting for the point where Kathy says to herself, “I’m gonna screw this snowman.”
It’s not right, frankly – but in a giggly, jaw-dropping kind of way. It’s also kind of funny, if you don’t take it too seriously, and nothing about this film is supposed to be taken seriously. It’s fun to write about, and – for the most part – fun to watch. That being said, the comedy is extremely one-note, and Hot Frosty’s bemused smirk gets more and more strained as the bit wears on to feature length.
It’s a cup of whipped cream with no hot chocolate. And so, when the inevitable, cringey earnestness about Christmas and togetherness and never giving up on love arrives, it comes as a relief. Now we can laugh at the movie, instead of laboring to laugh with it. Hot Frosty won’t mind, right?
