Frost: Portrait of a Vampire

Historians have maligned America's involvement in the Russian war in Afghanistan. After watching this film, I realize that criticism is unfair. Oh, sure, our advisors helped create the oppressive Taliban regime, and we armed and trained the future members of Al-Qaeda, but a lot of good came out of that war as well.

For one thing, it helped to restore our dwindling national vampire reserve. You see, Afghanistan was a real vampire haven, and some of our advisors were bitten. In turn, they came back and bit some friends and ... well, you know how it is with vampires.

This story shows how the aftermath of that war, and its effect on two men. One of them became a vampire, while the other became a painter and art historian named Jack Frost. (I didn't make that up.) It's not easy to maintain a friendship with an art historian who looks like slugging Yankee first sacker Jason Giambi (right), but it's literally a killer to keep up a friendship with a vampire. After a hard day of painting in the manner of Botticelli, a big, brawny High Renaissance artist just wants a little shut-eye, but his vampire friend is just stretching his legs and getting ready for the anytime breakfast at Denny's. The undead especially love the "ruddy-tuddy, fresh 'n bloody" breakfast, with a nice bloody breakfast steak, and a side order of the waitress's neck.

When the friendship thing doesn't work, Giambi decides he had better kill his pal. After all, Giambi is the perfect guy to battle vampires, because he really knows how to handle a bat. In fact, I thought the part really was played by the Yankee at first, but after having seen Giambi's commercials, I realize that he's a much better actor than the guy who played Jack Frost. Of course, Carrot Top is a better actor than this guy. His name is Jeff Manzanares, and his acting career consists of ... well, actually, it consists entirely of "Frost: Portrait of a Vampire", and I don't think his work here is likely to keep his agent's phone ringing.

NUDITY REPORT

Zoe Paul shows her breasts in two scenes.

Some of my favorite Grade B movie moments:

Frost and his buddy blow up a CGI helicopter in the opening scene. After the explosion, we see Giambi/Frost standing with the rocket launcher in his hand. A giant chopper wheel bounces two feet in front of him, but he doesn't flinch. A rotor blade lands about a foot to his left, but he doesn't even bother to duck. Steel shards are flying everywhere, but he doesn't even adjust his ever-present cool brown-tinted shades. He just stares manfully at the explosion.

Later in the film, Frost steals a museum painting and replaces it. He has an elaborate plan to sneak down to the painting from above in a harness, without touching the museum floor. This heist, however, is not quite The Thomas Crown Affair. When he leaves the museum through the roof, we see that he hasn't fastened the top right corner of the substitute painting, and that corner is simply hanging down. Yeah, they'll never notice that. (See the picture to the right.)

DVD info from Amazon

Widescreen letterboxed 1.85.
Quite a few storyboards. (The director is a first-timer, but has previously storyboarded scenes for other directors.)

In between Afghanistan and his confrontation with Giambi, the vampire is working as a mercenary soldier. Presumably he only does nighttime sorties. His buddies are really impressed with the top-notch soldiering he can do with his super powers, but they don't know it's a vampire thing. They think he's just been working out a lot, and they don't even blink when he crosses a room at light speed or lifts a tank to get his missing pack of Luckies.

The Critics Vote

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 2.4/10

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this film is a D. Not really a credible action movie, and not really a vampire movie except for a few minutes. Stiffly acted. Cheap CGI. The IMDb score of 2.4 gives you the correct idea. The only thing I really liked was a visually striking scene where the vampire carried a woman through a spooky, foggy, graveyard.