Frozen Assets

Junior executive at TGC Zach Shephard (Corbin Bersen) following the nervous breakdowns of one of TGC's vice presents approaches the CEO about a possible promotion. In order to get the promotion Zach must prove himself by turning around the financial situation of the Family First Bank in Hobart, Oregon. Once there, he meets the manager of Family First Dr. Grace Murdock (Shelly Long) only to find out it's not THAT kind of bank, it's a sperm bank. With options dwindling Zach arranges for a massive sale of sperm by encouraging the entire town to donate samples as part of a contest wherein whoever has the highest sperm count wins a $100,000 cash prize.

Produced and co-written by Don Klein and directed by Goerge T. Miller, Frozen Assets was independently produced and sold at the American Film Market utilizing promotional condoms that the Film Market forced the producers to clean up after the mess they made in the in the trade handouts and a real life "Stud of the Year" contest wherein participants could enter by donating sperm with the highest count winning an all expenses paid vacation to Mexico. The movie was acquired by RKO for distribution and bombed at the box office making only about $500,000 and critical reception was also dismal with Siskel and Ebert calling the film one of the worst of the year on their TV program. Frozen Assets has not seen a release beyond VHS and there's a very good reason for that, namely that Frozen Assets is awful.

The movie's more or less your standard "big city guy gets transferred to small eccentric town" narrative with all the cliches that entails with the movie instead primarily built upon its gags which are about as hackneyed as you can get from the moment are first gag with a man wearing underwear on his head and screaming at the top of his lungs into multiple phones setting the stage for the brainless stupidity that follows. The movie tries for many gags and bungles every one of them because try as they might this small town sperm bank isn't nearly as funny as the filmmakers seem to think it is despite their efforts to bash their humor into the audience with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Even from a technical perspective, the editing, staging, and filmmaking feel very cheap and amateurish with the level feeling like that of a TV sitcom (I can't imagine how poorly this would've played on a theater screen.

Frozen Assets is a terrible comedy that just isn't funny. It's humor is all very base, low brow, and poorly timed, and the characters never act like human beings as they oversell their delivers to an abrasive and annoying degree.

This has to be in the running for the worst movie of all time. My roommate and I just watched it, but don't know why; it was so painful. I wonder some times how movies like this make it in Hollywood. I honestly cannot think of a worse movie. Shelly Long sucks so bad in this movie that it makes her work in "Troop Beverly Hills" look like Oscar material. The chemistry between Corbin Bersen and Shelly Long was reminiscent of that time on Mister Wizard's World when he blew up his lab. And what was with Larry Miller??? Really, come on, people. Everything about this movie sucked, even the lighting! We will never be able to get back the last hour and a half of our life...never!

Personally, I enjoyed this movie and will seek to replace my recorded-off-TV tape with the DVD.

Zach Shepard (Corbin Bernsen) gets a promotion but on arrival in Hobart, Oregon, is dismayed to discover that it is not quite the promotion he had in mind. Being like a fish out of water in the sperm bank, his future going down the gurgler, he is determined to make something of it so to get promoted out of there, encountering the opposition of Dr Grace Murdoch (Shelley Long) who is the biogenetic counselor in charge of the sperm bank. I felt they played their parts well with their initial conflicts and tensions softening later. Larry Miller was the 'certifiable nerd', Newton Patterson, who wasn't what people took him to be. Teri Copley was charming as Peaches, one of the local working girls. Things that I liked in this movie were how Newton was accepted by Zach and Grace and given a chance while others rejected him as a looser and dropout and the working girls were also accepted as people, though rejected by some judgmental locals as 'whores'. There is warmth and humor in this movie.

I give this film a 4/10

This film isn't particularly terrible, or particularly great. Shelley Long & Corbin Bernsen do a passable job as the lead/romantic interest parts, Larry Miller plays an adequate funny man, though his mother in the movie (Dody Goodman) was great as his neurotic, doting mother. The general ambiance of the film is decent, though some of the dialogue is awkward, some of the scenes just feel out of place and it just kind of ambles along, giving a generally weak feeling as it goes.

I wouldn't recommend buying this film (though i do own a copy... rental store near me shut down), it's probably worth watching once if you ever spot it on television, there are a few genuinely funny moments to be had.

In 1992 this was the first movie that I worked in as a background artist. As Corbin Bernsen blew take after take and could not remember his lines or keep them consistent I could tell this film was not destined for greatness. I must say though as bad as the movie was I did find myself chuckling at some of the humour. My father wanted to leave the movie theater after my scene was over but I convinced him to stay to see it through. Soon I will finally own a copy of this film on VHS, all the local Oregon video stores have reported their copies missing or "stolen". Probably by other Oregonians who were in the movie and didn't want it to be seen by the masses.