Once upon a time, the state of Florida was quite the go to location for Exploitation film directors. "The B-movie capital of the world", some called it... Actually, nobody probably ever said that. However, in the 1960's, small-time directors such as Herschell Gordon Lewis and Doris Wishman couldn't stay away. Choosing some town in Florida to shoot whatever off-beat weirdness they recently came up with. Gore movies, Nudie Cuties, Hixploitation, you name it. Quite the history, and to many B-movie fans, quite the legacy. The 1960's was a magical time within the world of Florida Explotation, but like every heyday, there is a decline before the book is finally closed on yet another era. By the early 70's, Exploitation films weren't considered quite what they were. Still a thing, but not as profitable, therefore, not as common. Some were still coming out of Florida, but mostly just odd, random little films that came and went unnoticed. Films like Blood Freak, films like Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things. I could probably come up with something better for this one, but I can't resist. I got to at least try to elaborate on a film I saw recently called Santa And The Ice Cream Bunny. A movie you may just want to skip all together. Not gonna lie.

"Why, Florida ain't no place for Santa", you might say. And you'd be correct, but that's really the running gag of the movie and eemingly what all this pile of nothing is based around. So, Christmas is a little up in the air at the moment. Being just days away, Santa's elves (played by a bunch of kids) have no idea where he is, as they let us know this loudly in song because they sing everything, I guess. They ARE elves, after all. At the moment, Santa happens to be stranded on a Florida beach. Abandoned by his Reindeer, the old guy is naturally having a hell of a time getting his sleigh off the sand and back to the other side of the world. Santa needs to come up with something fast because Christmas is approaching, and he really seems to hate the sun, which seems to be the bigger issue of the two. Santa then sings about all that for a while.

Having powers and stuff, Santa uses some old fashioned telepathy to summon random kids in town to head down to the beach to try and help out. And try they do, as these random kids find a bunch of random animals to serve as substitute Reindeer. Even a Gorilla gets involved, but to no avail. For the time being, Santa is going nowhere. So, what now? Well, they throw us a bit of a curve ball around the 20 minute mark, as Santa starts babbling about faith and courage, which, I guess, is a nice way of telling them to get up and keep helping. Santa proves his point by telling them the story of Jack And The Beanstalk. We'll just say this is the extra long version of the fable. Seriously! THIS is the movie. Santa And The Ice Cream Bunny is actually about Jack And The Beanstalk because Santa's storytime last about Forty fucking minutes! That's forty straight minutes, by the way.

And I'm not even going into this one because we've all heard that story, but I will say it makes this 70 minute movie feel like it lasts several hours. Thankfully, we're returned to Florida by the 60 minute mark. Just in time to watch Santa and some little girl play with some dog for a while. The children then run off as Santa takes another nap. So, either these kids went looking for the Ice Cream Bunny or they just happened to find him on his fire truck. I don't know, that was weird. One second they're gone, and the next, they're on there with him, headed back to the beach. We then sit through an uncomfortably long scene with the Ice Cream Bunny with a bunch of kids, driving down the street as slowly as possible. At one point, he even has to come to a complete stop when the dog gets in the way. Ice Cream Bunny doesn't mind, as he doesn't come off like someone who gets in a hurry often. ICB does seem somewhat interested in helping out, despite his unusually slow pace. After what seems like a tour of the entire town, Ice Cream Bunny and pals finally make it to the beach, and as they say, the rest is history!

Ok, first of all, too much singing. Like way too much! I guess one could classify this movie as a musical, huh? Well, that and a one-story anthology with a wrap-around, making this possibly the worst Santa movie in existence. Secondly, WOW! Filler outweighing the actual story isn't something you see every day. So, that was unexpected. And thirdly, that questionable 60% of the movie is actually scenes from some other movie entirely. I'm guessing it's called Jack And The Beanstalk. Not-so interesting fact: After a little research, I discovered that The Jack And The Beanstalk filler only appeared in the theatrical version, while the vhs version included Thumbelina. Guess I lucked out.

And lastly, that thing driving what's supposed to be a fire truck is not an ice cream bunny! I don't even know what that means, but it's clearly not made of ice cream, nor did I see him handing any out to the kids, so, that's stupid! And unless that happened to be a young Cabin Fever bunny, sorry, not interested. I didn't bring this movie up because of what it is, but rather what it's part of, or what it's wedged into, really. Being from Florida, myself, I have a soft spot for these Sunshine State oddities from another time, but I don't think I could find a worse one if my life depended on it. Just the same, I just thought you should know. So, what is this, a fish out of water story? Campy kiddie flick? The last gasps of breath from a once-fruitful era in independent film? We'll go with all of the above, and probably a couple other qualities I'm missing. Whatever this is, or whatever it's supposed to be, the world would probably be a better place, had it never been made. 2/10