The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)
The Wolf of Snow Hollow is a werewolf movie worth getting excited about. This is a smart movie that plays with the genre in a way I’ve never seen done before. Its satire and commentary are unusually clever. You get laughs with the scares in a way that makes every scene unpredictable.
After a brutal murder in the skiing community of Snow Hollow, strange clues are found in the snow. Officer John Marshall (Jim Cummings, who also directs and writes) has enough trouble dealing with his alcoholism, estranged teenaged daughter (Chloe East), and sickly father (Robert Forster). He doesn’t need people attributing crimes to a mythical creature. Although the bodies keep piling up and people keep remarking that the murders all take place on full moons, John refuses to believe a werewolf is responsible.
I love the way this movie plays with your expectations in a quasi-meta way. People in horror movies don’t know they’re in horror movies so is John smart... or stupid? We’ve seen the beast. We know it’s no ordinary animal. He doesn’t. Normally, there'd be an obligatory 20 minutes spent teasing the monster. We’d be fed the information at the same rate as the characters until they’d have to admit that a wolfman is indeed turning women into deli meat. Not here. It’s hilarious that no matter what John sees, he refuses to accept the evidence. Then again wouldn’t you be suspicious?
Whether the police are incompetent or not is a recurring question. Though it’s often played for dark laughs, it also leads up toward more profound ideas. If there is a werewolf on the loose, then John Marshall is a terrible police officer. He’s not piecing these clues together and is wasting time with other theories. Maybe if he wasn’t struggling with the bottle so much, he’d be able to see that, he wouldn’t be firing officers who suggest they arm themselves with silver bullets. Unfortunately, his personal life is such a catastrophe he can't think outside the box. The pools of blood and severed limbs are eroding his sanity and the tiny police department doesn’t have the resources to keep up with the media frenzy accompanying this kind of story. If there isn’t a werewolf in Snow Hollow… he’s still a mess, barely able to maintain a relationship with his daughter, picking fights, struggling to deal with the trauma of the crime scenes. But could anyone? Probably not. Then again, Officer Julia Robson (Riki Lindhome) seems to be doing ok. Does the fact that she’s a woman have anything to do with it? John comes from a family of law enforcers. Dealing with this should be in his blood and as the history books he reads point out, women are usually the victims of crimes like these. They can’t be both the victims and the heroes, right? Wait. You can’t be both the hero and the villain… and when was the last time you heard of a “wolf woman”?
I might be accused of looking too deeply into The Wolf of Snow Hollow but the movie is too smart - particularly during the ending - to be merely what you see on the surface. It’s funny in ways that make you wonder if it’s ok to laugh, and then it’ll scare you for real. You have no idea where it’s headed, or what’s going to happen to the characters. This is the kind of movie that makes you want to hit “play” again the second it’s over to see what details you missed the first time. (July 1, 2021)
