This Year’s Goofiest, Strangest Christmas Movie Has Taken Over Netflix

For many years, the Hallmark Channel seemed to have a monopoly on the made-for-TV Christmas rom-com subgenre. But as streamers like Netflix continue to become the main source of entertainment for millions of people across the globe, they’ve been expanding their original offerings to include these silly, saccharine, and undeniably addictive movies that people can’t seem to get enough of during the holiday season. Sure, there are some that simply hate-watch these types of stories about high-powered women who visit their humble hometowns for the holidays and decide to give it all up to fall back in love with their now-hunky high school sweethearts who own farms and exclusively wear festive flannels, but there are plenty of people who genuinely, unapologetically love these movies.

Netflix hasn’t been afraid to embrace even the most absurd set-ups for these movies, establishing its own very real and legitimate multiverse of holiday movies. However, the former reigning queen Vanessa Hudgens, Vanessa Hudgens, and Vanessa Hudgens (her triple-role as shown in “The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star”) has finally been dethroned, because viewers can’t seem to get enough of the Woman-Falls-For-a-Snowman movie, “Hot Frosty.”

Following the same story premise as the “Frosty the Snowman” lore we all know and love, “Mean Girls” and made-for-TV rom-com star Lacey Chabert plays Kathy, a widow who wraps a magical scarf around a snowman (that looks like the result of Michelangelo’s artistry had he chosen snow instead of marble for his preferred medium). The hunky snowman comes to life as a man named Jack (“Schitt’s Creek” star Dustin Milligan) and immediately falls in love with her. If you’re expecting the moral power of something like “It’s a Wonderful Life,” you’re a fool. But if you’re down to watch Gretchen Wieners fall in love with a himbo snowman in a town that looks like it jumped off of a Christmas postcard sold at Hallmark stores, you’re in for a holiday treat.

“Hot Frosty” writer Russell Hainline provided a sweet origin story of the film on Letterboxd, admitting that the title of the film came first, and just the thought of a movie called “Hot Frosty” made him giggle “like a madman.” He then started pitching the film to his friends with the tagline, “What if, when Frosty the Snowman came to life … he was a super-hot dude?” Honestly, it practically sells itself. He started seriously writing the film following the quarantine era of the pandemic and admitted it was when his anxiety was becoming debilitating. “I was personally coming out of a time when my anxiety was at an all-time high,” he wrote. “I wasn’t loving myself and I certainly wasn’t loving the world.”

Hainline channeled that energy into a bit of wish fulfillment for the personality of Jack — a “person” who was literally born yesterday and who sees the world through optimistic eyes without being bogged down by all of the harsh realities that make us all inch closer and closer to our inevitable, Scrooge-esque final forms. “I really, really tried to make the heart of the movie something that felt real to me. learning to love yourself, learning to find ways to move on,” he continued. “Learning to make the most of the limited time you have on this planet (and, as Vulture correctly pointed out, learning how to try to persevere in the face of police abuse of power!)” 

That’s the true secret to all the films of this very strange subgenre. As much as people like to blow them off as nothing more than cheesy fluff, there’s always some sort of deeper message at the center. Chabert’s Kathy is still learning how to move forward after the passing of her husband, and “Hot Frosty” isn’t afraid of acknowledging the difficulty that comes with that particular flavor of grief. At the same time, Craig Robinson and Joe Lo Truglio are the buddy-cop comedic relief that doubles as the film’s main antagonists, but who absolutely embody the unchecked power trips found in small-town law enforcement agents.

Lacey Chabert has starred in over 30 Hallmark movies at this point, but “Hot Frosty” is, in this writer’s opinion, her strongest outing since “Christian Mingle” (yes, a movie sponsored by the Christian dating service), because she has to keep “Hot Frosty” grounded while surrounded by absolute absurdity. She’s our “relatable everywoman” with just enough uniqueness to avoid feeling like a nothingburger of a character, while also being archetypal enough for any viewer to slip themselves into her position and follow her on this journey.

Director Jerry Ciccoritti uses the camera to present Dustin Milligan in a way that turns him into a hunky calendar model at every turn, whether he’s fixing up roofs and windows around town, befriending everyone in the community, cooking homemade meals for Kathy, or, y’know, rubbing ice on his washboard abs because he’s a snowman and trying to “keep cold.” They are both so dialed into their roles as an unlikely couple falling in love and saving the town from power-happy cops, but they’re boosted by a supporting cast that also understands the assignment and never once acts as if they’re “above” it.

Sure, the script gleefully borrows from famous romantic comedies and Christmas classics alike, but that’s half the fun of watching it. “Hot Frosty” is a movie that understands the tropes of the genre and doesn’t try to subvert them or distance themselves from them — instead, refusing to run away from exactly what type of movie this is.

Bed a snowman this holiday season, ladies. You’ve earned it.