Intended to be a silly, family-friendly Christmas movie, Hot Frosty stumbles into Stepford Wives territory as it tells the story of a widowed woman who falls in love with a snowman she's brought to life. Herein lies the problem with the film (well, there are a few). The Netflix film attempts to adhere to traditional Hallmark Christmas movie tropes while staying up-to-date with the changing social milieu, as the object of desire in this Weird Science kind of narrative is male. That's fine, but we still have the Hallmark rules that the middle-aged single woman is a widow who still has pictures of her late husband in the basement and still pines after him. The point here is that the female lead is constructed as inherently asexual; that is, she wasn't lusting after the low-bodyfat snowman who came to life, but it was just an unexpected boon from her guardian angel maybe. The film cannot decide if it wants to be family friendly or sexy, and the snowman (appropriately named Jack, as in Jack Frost), comes across as a mindless automaton, or even worse, a toddler.
Lacey Chabert puts her scarf on a statue and it comes to life. And the whole movie he’s wearing that stupid scarf.
So what is Hot Frosty about? No long discussion here. The film can be aptly described in a sentence or two. Lacey Chabert (of course, it's Lacey Chabert), plays Kathy, who owns a small town cafe and is given a flamboyant red scarf that she decides to put on a semi-nude, ripped snowman who was part of a snow sculpture competition. Because Kathy secretly wishes for new love, the snowman comes to life and narrowly evades being arrested for indecent exposure as he's only wearing a scarf. The film descends into a comedy of errors as Jack, which is the name the snowman assumes, has the mind of a wiped-clean-hard drive Stepford wife or of a child as he's technically just been born. The whole town falls in love with him for some reason, accept for the sheriff who is dead set on finding the person who committed some crimes the night that Jack came to life. Jack eventually is apprehended by the sheriff who has footage of him breaking into a store from an ATM camera, but as Jack is loved by the townspeople, the sheriff is convinced to let him go.
Listen, I've defended this movie to several people as harmless, although I do agree with the comments of several users on IMDB who argue that the film strays into inappropriate territory as Jack is presented as having the mind of a kid or at the very least someone who is not all there upstairs. The film seems to subvert the old image of hot woman as sex object with an updated version, the hot man, or in this case Hot Frosty, but the trope is less successful here because it's superimposed on the other tropes I mentioned. There are some great YouTube videos out there about Hallmark Christmas movie tropes.
Hot Frosty might have been more successful if it had made Lacey Chabert's Kathy character a divorcee who was frustrated with speed dating until Jack came along. That at least would have been a more honest portrayal of the storyline. Or even better, Jack could have been a factory-made Stepford clone who contemplates his existence as a mere sex object. The film is just too silly and poorly-flushed-out to be taken seriously, even if it is occasionally entertaining.
Lacey Chabert loves Jack, even if he’s kind of a moron.
Indeed, Hot Frosty would have been better served if the filmmakers had given it the full Stepford Wives treatment. The Stepford Wives (1975) is the tale of men in a quaint Mid-Atlantic town who replace their wives with factory clones, raising this societal question about conformity and what men really want in a wife. Hot Frosty could have subverted this idea by making it females acquiring male mates, but the film fails to do this as it tries to be a sexy, family-friendly film and ends up being neither. A little seriousness could have taken Hot Frosty a long way, but it seemed the producers and screenwriters weren't particularly interested in exploring some of the underlying societal questions. Ah well, we'll see what horrible script the networks throw at Lacey Chabert next year.
Personally, I think Hot Frosty should have gone full Stepford.