![]() ![]() My advice to you: Try to acquire it before you see “The Wolf of Snow Hollow,” because attempting to adjust to his wavelength in this context is a mostly frustrating prospect. Crew model kind of way, but also works hard to show that there’s roiling complexity beneath that superficially appealing exterior.Ĭummings’ characters come with baggage, and watching the actor wrestle with his demons is something of an acquired taste. But the central personality here - the one guilty of sucking up most of the oxygen in the room - is writer-director Jim Cummings, who’s handsome in that square-jawed J. Those characters include a violence-averse police chief ( Robert Forster, offering a variation on Tommy Lee Jones’ introspective “No Country for Old Men” routine in his final role) and a scene-stealing female officer (“Garfunkel & Oates” alum Riki Lindhome) whose intuition is every bit as sharp as her comic timing. Or more accurately, it treats them as the setup for a uniquely uncomfortable sitcom of sorts, one that’s less concerned with solving the case than it is with showcasing the odd mix of characters tasked with investigating the crimes. Ghastly as that sounds, “ The Wolf of Snow Hollow” treats these murders as a joke. The situation is worse than that, actually: The insidious lupine assailant rips off their limbs, separates their heads, and leaves a gaping hole where their most intimate parts ought to be. Mission accomplished as far as I’m concerned!ĭisclaimer: This review was originally published in my April newsletter.Someone - or something - is killing young women in the sleepy town of Snow Hollow. It’s just trying to have fun and spook you out with werewolves and murder. An adventurous, genre-bending wildcard that doesn’t care whether or not there’s a sustainable market for the story it’s trying to tell. It’s just a type of movie that isn’t being made anymore. This was definitely a fun throwback to the VHS era that didn’t feel gimmicky or opportunistic. The Wolf of Snow Hollow is definitely a movie that walks to the sound of its own drum. It’s not clumsy or out of place, but it’s quirky and it takes some getting used to. After an intense scene featuring a mangled corpse, last thing I felt like seeing was John having a freaking nervous breakdown and falling on the floor drunk. Sure, there are weird tonal clashes in the writing that feel very 90s. I don’t know about you, but I fucking love it when it happens. At some point, you’re absolutely convinced that you’re watching horror and then, the movie makes a 180 degree turn and becomes something completely else. Luckily, it hesitates between two cousin genres: mystery and horror. ![]() Indie WeirdosĪnother great aspect of The Wolf of Snow Hollow is that it’s completely ambivalent about the genre of film it wants to be. He has these really, really funny fits of anger at the worst possible moments, shows a complete lack of leadership and yet, these self-destructive tendencies take control of him in a way that you can’t help but root for the guy to save his soul. We’ve all known a guy who carries himself like the prom king, who thinks he should’ve been prom king but can’t handle himself while the pressure is on. Marshall feels real in a movie that is anything but. We all did shit because we were unable to emotionally cope with something or were just unable to stop ourselves. It’s both insanely pathetic and relatable. At the beginning of the movie he’s three years sober and when he relapses, he drinks mouthwash. I really liked that character because although he is too loony to exist, he’s violently unromantic. Good fucking God is that guy weird or what? He is the proper antithesis to the film noir detective: he wears a uniform, respects hierarchy, his alcoholism is crippling rather than charming and best of all, he is the furthest thing from being composed. This is a solid horror/crime hybrid in its own right, but what makes The Wolf of Snow Hollow both extremely funny and oddly gripping is John Marshall himself.
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