Jack Frost (1964)

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Guess what, you guys! It's Derek's birthday month! (That's a thing, right? He sounded like he knew what he was talking about...) And to celebrate, he is picking four weeks' worth of movies! And he even picked a theme: Unriffed versions of movies he loves from Mystery Science Theater 3000.

This week's movie is the 1964 Russo-Finnish co-production, Jack Frost starring Aleksandr Khvylya, Natalya Sedykh, Eduard Izotov, Inna Churikova, Pavel Pavlenko, Vera Altayskaya, and Georgiy Millyar.

Georgiy is there to provide the raw sexuality of Baba Yaga.

Ivan (Izotov) is a narcissistic, kinda dumb pile of muscles who can't stop looking at himself in the mirror. He is off for a walk in the woods, as one does, to see what he can see. And one of the first things he sees is a bunch of bandits who want to rob him and possibly eat him. Most disturbing of all is that the chief of these bandits (Anatoliy Kubatskiy) looks like a Schnauzer.

He robs people to fund his chew toy habit.

When he and his bandits confront van, he makes short work of them, and throws all their clubs in the air. When they don't immediately come back down, Ivan tells them they will come fall when the next winter comes. Then he goes on his way.

Meanwhile, somewhere else, young Nastenka (Sedykh) is doing the best she can to appease her evil stepmother (Altayskaya), as is normally required for this sort of story. The stepmother demands that Nastenka knit some new socks for her stepsister, Marfusha (Churikova), the stepmother's pride and joy. In order to get them done by her stepmother's arbitrary deadline, Nastenka convinces the sun to hold off on coming up, potentially throwing the entire Earth into total chaos, just so she can finish her little socks on time.

Back in the forest, Ivan continues strolling around and runs across Father Mushroom (Mikhail Yanshin), an elderly dwarf who is so hard-up for entertainment that he asks Ivan to play hide-and-seek with him, offering Ivan a new bow and some arrows if he catches the old man.

C'mon, old man...Lemme just lick your head once.

The game goes on for way too long, but the old guy cheats, so he gives Ivan the bow and arrows anyway. However, when Ivan refuses to bow to the old man in thanks, Father Mushroom decides to teach Ivan a lesson.

Blissfully unaware that Father Mushroom has all but doomed him, Ivan comes across Nastenka, who has been tasked by her stepmother to water an old stump until it blooms flowers. Ivan is instantly infatuated and asks her to marry him, despite the fact that he is in his early- to mid-twenties, and she is only about fourteen. She refuses, telling him she's not feeling it because he's too full of himself.

Not to be refused, Ivan tells her he'll shoot a bear with an arrow to show he can provide for her. She's not keen on it, and sticks a bucket on his head to keep him from doing it. When he pulls it off, he has the head of a bear.

Oddly, it makes him slightly less annoying.

Ivan is upset, so he goes looking for Father Mushroom to get his normal head back. Father Mushroom tells him that he must stop being such a self-centered dickhole, and, of course, Ivan gets it all wrong and assumes that all he has to do is a good deed, so he sets off to find someone in need of his help. His first few tries don't work, but when he finds an elderly woman who is having trouble carrying a bundle of wood, he gives her a piggyback ride across the mountains to her house.

Unfortunately, it still doesn't change him back, and he runs off into the forest, only to find the old woman's walking stick. Knowing she won't be able to get around without it, he decides he has to take it to her. Father Mushroom suddenly appears and sees that Ivan is finally willing to do something selfless, and he turns the young man back to his human form. Ivan realizes what happened, and heads out to find Nastenka again and win her love.

Nastenka's stepmother, meanwhile, is trying to get Marfusha a man of her own. She has arranged a meeting with a potential husband for her daughter, and she wants everything to go perfectly, so she gets Marfusha all gussied up.

Maybe she's born with it...Maybe it's beets and pancake batter.

However, when Marfusha proves unable to strangle a goose to cook dinner for her potential mate, he says he wants Nastenka, which sends the stepmother into a blind rage and she demands that Nastenka's father (Pavlenko) take his daughter into the forest and leave her there to die. She's super fun like that.

Nastenka's father takes her out into the woods, which are now covered in snow, but before he gets to the spot where he is supposed to leave her, he decides to stand up to his wife. He's not going to leave Nastenka! He's going to put his foot down!

Nastenka, however, is not willing to let her father take the fall for her, so she jumps off the cart and runs into the forest without her father realizing it until he gets back home. She finds a nice tree to sit under and maybe freeze to death, if that's okay with everyone. But before she can, she is found by Father Frost, who takes her to his castle where it is a little bit warmer. He leaves her there wtht he warning to never touch his staff, because it will cause her to freeze.

They have to call it an ice castle because "frozen sex dungeon" was not
received well by audiences.

Ivan, now lost and still unsure where to find Nastenka, decides to speak to a local witch, Baba Yaga, who lives in a cabin that rests on giant chicken legs. (No, really.) She tries to kill him by stuffing him in her oven, but he turns the tables on her and forces her to tell him where Nastenka can be found. When Ivan leaves to go after her, Baba Yaga sends her cat out to kill Nastenka.

The cat finds Nastenka before Ivan, and in doing so, causes her to do the one thing she was warned against doing: Touching Father Frost's staff. She freezes, the cat leaves, and Father Frost comes home to find her as a Nastenka-sicle.

Will Ivan arrive in time to save her? Can she even be saved? Will Mafusha ever get hitched? Is the sex between Nastenka's father and stepmother as hot as we all imagine it to be? You'll have to tune in to find out!

Derek picked this one because he is fascinated by the mixture of beautiful cinematography and batshit crazy storytelling. And the people who are a part of it are totally committed to it. You've got to respect that.

Larry was surprised to find that he enjoyed this movie. He gets a lot of fun out of the the stepmother and Marfusha. And what's not to like? They're funny, and they work well together. Also, we're pretty sure Larry thinks they're hot.

So put on your babushka, stretch out your barely-working bow, and tune in to this week's episode!