813 - JACK FROST

Genre:  Goofy Russian-Finnish Fairy Tale (1964, Color)

Synopsis:  This feature is a fairy tale story from Russian that combines elements from a number of fairy tales such as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty... rather badly.  In this goofy tale, a cute young girl named Nasty Stinka – oh, sorry – named Nastika, is treated badly by her evil stepmother and ugly stepsister while her spineless father does nothing.  Meanwhile, a guy named Ivan with a goofy bowl-shaped haircut decides to leave his village and venture out on his own.  First he runs into some bandits to whom he gives his sack of money but he takes their clubs and throws them so high in the air, they won’t return until next winter or the end of the movie, whichever comes first.  Next, Ivan runs into Father Mushroom, a bizarre looking wizard guy with a mushroom cap for a head.  They play hide-and-seek, which Ivan wins, and he receives... a brand new bow-and-arrow set from Ronco!  Ivan apparently was somehow disrespectful to the mushroom guy because he didn’t grovel before him on the ground so, soon after Ivan meets Nastika, the mushroom wizard turns him into a Bear.  Ivan assumes he has to do good deeds to become normal again, so he’s running around trying to do good deeds.  But it turns out all he had to do was pick up a stick and think about returning it to its owner to return to normal.  Now that Ivan is back to normal, he wants to find Nastika.  But her stepmother has sent her father out to dump her in the middle of the wintry forest to let her freeze to death.  Ivan goes to see a witch who can tell him where Nastika currently is, but the old woman instead tries to put him in an oven and cook him for dinner.  Ivan tricks the old woman and gets her to give him a pig sled that will lead him to Nastika... if he can only catch it.  Meanwhile, Jack Frost himself has found Nastika freezing and takes pity on her, so he takes her back to his home via his turbo-charged horseless carriage.  He tells her never to touch his scepter otherwise she will go into a deep sleep from which she’ll never wake up.  Of course, as soon as he leaves, Nastika touches the scepter accidentally (okay, so she isn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer).  Luckily, forever isn’t very long and the love of Ivan is strong enough to wake her up only a few minutes later.  So Nastika and Ivan are married and her evil stepsister is made a laughingstock when her trip into the forest only causes her to return with a bunch of pigs.

Don’s Review:  In short, this is one goofy movie – easily one of the goofiest ever seen on the show.  But, somehow, it really was not as much fun as the other goofy Russian films that were MSTed in the past, like The Day the Earth Froze.  Although there are a lot of laughs from the movie itself, I was disappointed by the riffing – it wasn’t as fun as I was expecting.  Plus add in some weak host segments (with the notable exception of a funny visit from the incredibly untalented Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff) and this was a rather disappointing episode, given my expectations going in (...but I’ll re-watch it again one day, though, to see if I initially judged it too harshly).

Don’s Rating: 

Forrest’s Review:  What a goofy freakin' movie! This is easily the goofiest of the Russo-Finnish movies seen on MST3K, what with a witch that has a house that spins around, Hobbit thieves, a mean step-sister, really unattractive Finnish women, a pig that eats ham, a weird little mushroom guy (easily the scariest thing I have ever seen), and a young Mike Nelson. What more could you ask for?! The other night, I rewatched Jack Frost for the second time, and the riffing varies a bit, but overall it holds up very well. Mike and Servo had great consistent riffing, but a few of Crow's fell really flat for me ("Do you like my new web site?"); but still, Crow gets away with the best line in the whole episode ("Am I unBEARable?!"). Servo was, overall, the strongest riffer in this: "Yes follow the feather to Forrest Gump and poke him in the eye and kill him!"  I thought the movie Forrest Gump was a well-done movie, but I hate it for an obvious reason.  Overall, the riffing was great, better than in The Magic Voyage of Sinbad and The Sword and the Dragon combined, but not quite near the level in The Day The Earth Froze.  It still contained the enjoyable movie and great riffing for me to award it 5 Crows..... but... the host segments are a terrible mess.  Usually I enjoy the Sci-Fi host segments.  I do admit that I thought the ones at Comedy Central were better, but I am not one of those fans that wishes death to the Sci-Fi host segments, and 99% of the time I enjoy them a lot.  But I must say, these are some pretty lame skits that were not funny and, at times, embarrassing to watch!  The one about Crow being a bear was not funny at all.  Not even worth a smile.  The long skit about Bobo and Brain guy finally having something in common runs far too long and isn't very funny either.  I'm going to have to agree with Don on this one.  The only funny segment was the one with the untalented Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff.  Listen, I usually don't grade an episode on host segments, but I'm going to deduct an entire Crow for the weak host segments in this episode.  With such a goofy movie, the segments could have been so much more, especially when compared to The Sword and the Dragon.  Although the riffing in that episode was much weaker than in Jack Frost, the riffing was still very funny, and the movie was very enjoyable.  Jack Frost also has an enjoyable movie with some great riffing, but the host segments had too much potential for me to let this one slide.

Forrest’s Rating: 

Related Link: 
   (1) DVD Review (Original Movie Review)