Frosty's Hot To Go
Do you wanna fuck a snowman?
Look. If you’re someone who reads this silly newsletter then I hardly need to explain the appeal of Netflix’s bonkers festive offering Hot Frosty. And I’m sure you understand how I was compelled to write about a film1 where a sexy snowman comes to life via an inexplicably magic scarf. I mean, how could I not! So I will!
Kathy, played by Hallmark Christmas queen Lacey Chabert, now annexing the realm of the Netflix Christmas film, is a young widow who lives in the excellently named town of Hope Springs. She’s cute as a button, runs a beloved diner called Kathy’s Kafé and everyone in town loves her! A little girl even rushes in with her mam to see if there’s chocolate chip pancakes on the menu today and there aren’t but by god, Kathy will make her some anyway! The little girl’s mam is distractingly glamorous for an actor with four seconds of screen time, so much so that I could tell she was Someone but just wasn’t sure Who, exactly. (Turns out it was Chrishell Stause from Selling Sunset, a show I do not watch and yet I still know that Chrishell is in a relationship with nonbinary Australian singer G Flip and is mortal enemies with blonde Disney villain estate agent Christine.)
Kathy the kafé kutie (wait… maybe I should rethink this one) lives in a house that is falling apart ever since her husband passed away from cancer a year ago. In fairness, the house is actually really nice, but the boiler is broken and the ceiling is dripping water. Her late husband used to take care of all the housey things, you see. Kathy drops lunch into her friend Mel who runs the thrift shop, as she knew that Mel and her husband would be too busy to get it themselves because Kathy is a Good Friend. Mel then gifts Kathy a red wool scarf because it looks like the one she herself wore the night she met said husband, and it’s high time Kathy got Back Out There. It’s convoluted but sure, okay. At first, Kathy insists she doesn’t need the scarf but Kathy, babe, your house is a leaky ice box, take the free scarf.
That night after closing up, Kathy wanders through the snowmen that have been sculpted in the town square for the snowman sculpting competition because this place is basically a Stars Hollow knockoff. She then sees that someone has created a snow hunk, or should I say, a Hot Frosty with — and I’m sorry but it has to be acknowledged — disconcertingly detailed nipples. She considers Hot Frosty for a while and then places the scarf around his hunky neck, but he doesn’t need the scarf, you do, Kathy!
Cut to the scarf somehow bringing Hot Frosty to life which leads to a ripped Dustin Milligan running around in the nip with the scarf multitasking as a sort of loincloth. He breaks into the thrift shop for some clothes, not realising that this is a crime for he is but a newborn hunk, and grabs a pair of boots and sleeveless boiler suit with the name Jack embroidered on it.
Now here’s the thing. Dustin Milligan was of course Ted from Schitt’s Creek, a cutie! Lovely! But as the titular Hot Frosty he’s just not… hot? I don’t know what it is exactly but he’s the type of jacked that stresses me out, all dehydrated arm veins popping out to the point that I just wanted to put a jumper on him and tell him he can breathe out and eat a carb.
Of course Kathy ends up being the one to mind Jack, (as he is now called due to the boiler suit, but I think we can all agree that his real name is Hot Frosty) and lets him stay in her house, so inevitably a sweet, if slightly concerning romance blossoms. There’s a type of character described as Born Sexy Yesterday, and they’re almost exclusively female. (Like Leeloo from The Fifth Element, or Bella from Poor Things.) But in a win for feminism (I guess?) Hot Frosty is a rare male example of Born Sexy Yesterday. I tried to think of another one but it’s pretty much just him and Rocky from The Rocky Horror Picture Show as far as I can tell. And now I kinda want a team-up movie starring them together. Which I guess would basically be Dude, Where’s My Car? but with festive musical numbers? Wait, is this an amazing idea??
At one point, Hot Frosty comes across a box of medical records from the time Kathy’s husband spent in hospital and this is what the doctor’s notes look like:
As a designer, I’m familiar with this typeface, it’s usually employed for a jaunty aside in say, a school textbook. In fact I’m almost certain I used it for some Did You Know? fact boxes in just such a recent job. It’s called Noteworthy and you know what else is noteworthy? Using it for a fucking cancer patient’s medical files!! RIP Kathy’s husband, seen off by the local clown hospital.
Anyway, there are shenanigans aplenty, as the small-town cops are looking for the person who broke into the thrift shop so Hot Frosty has to play it cool (eh? eh??) and of course, he doesn’t always quite manage it. There’s an early sequence where Hot Frosty is left alone for the day with the television on, which is how he learns how to be a human and do various human things like make pizza and put up a Christmas tree. Interestingly, he didn’t know what a remote control was, but instinctively made a sign of the cross to ward off vampires when Nosferatu comes on at one point in the montage. What sort of arcane knowledge he was born with, and what other secrets and rituals has precipitation been hiding from us all this time?
Also, who created Hot Frosty in the first place? Is there a secret snow sculptor in this town watching him run around the place fixing a leaky roof while shirtless and thinking, “fuck it anyway that was meant to be MY snow hunk boyfriend, curse you Kathy!”
Surprisingly this film actually doesn’t go all the way into a so-bad-it’s-good type of watch and it does have some genuinely funny moments, so it lands somewhere in between cliché-laden Christmas film with no budget and Actually Decent Comedy. For example, there’s a shopping montage with a Pretty Woman gag, helpfully soundtracked by Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman, in case we weren’t 100% sure what they were going for. But then there’s also a moment in a baking scene where Kathy happily bites the head off a snowman biscuit and the freaked-out look on Dustin Milligan’s face is properly hilarious.
Things come to a head when the local sheriff (an excellent Craig Robinson doing his Craig Robinson thing, keyboard included) finally catches up with Hot Frosty and throws him in jail. Kathy and her doctor friend reveal to all the townsfolk in Kathy’s Kafé that Hot Frosty is actually a snowman who has come to life and the jail is too warm so he’ll melt and die. Everyone in the diner is immediately on board with this wild allegation, I think at one point someone even says “Hey, it’s Christmas!” as if that explains anything. I’m concerned that there’s a gas leak in Kathy’s Kafé.
However, this whole town loves Kathy and want to get her laid at any cost, even if it means a frostbitten vag. So the people of Hope Springs gather at the police station and have a whip round to collect enough money for Hot Frosty’s bail. When Sheriff Craig Robinson comes outside, Kathy’s doctor friend announces that everyone in town is here to get Hot Frosty OUT of the slammer! Everyone in town!! There are about 38 people in the wide shot.
Unfortunately they’re too late and when they finally get a melting (read: sweating) Hot Frosty outside and into some snow he DIES. And everyone just walks away? Leaving a body in the snow in the middle of town?? Kathy cries and takes the magic scarf from around his neck and I’m sorry but my man’s eyelids are clearly moving here, but I suppose that was the best take they got! Anyway he wakes up because of Christmas magic and/or true love’s kiss and also he’s human now because he finally feels the cold! Hooray! Now they can have sex without any internal injuries or melting dongs! God bless us, every one!
Next up: The Merry Gentlemen, in which Chad Michael Murray sustains a back injury from having to carry an entire Netflix Christmas film on his own.
And also straight-up requested, hi Amy! 👋🏻
Oh no, now I want to watch Hot Frosty? This was hilarious. The inappropriate font! (Would Brendan Fraser's George of the Jungle or Encino Man count as Born Sexy Yesterday? I want to say yes, but maybe they're better classed as himbos? Hmm.)
Celeste is home for Christmas and we have been bingeing. Consuming Hallmarkesque Christmas is an official family pastime, we I have a spreadsheet and elaborate rating system. this one was 6/6 trees- it had all the tropes: fantastic, implausible plot, dead parent/soouse, Christmas is a supporting cast member, there's a holiday miracle. We also clocked the absurd font and creepy veiny arms (someone give that man water before he passes out!) And agree Ted's face was weird, like it should be handsome but maybe because they're withholding fluids, something looks distractingly askew .