[Review] The Wolf of Snow Hollow(2020) {7.5/10}

Written, Directed by and starring Jim Cummings (John Marshall), the film also stars Riki Lindhome (Julia Robson), Chloe East (Jenna Marshall), and Jimmy Tatro (PJ Palfrey), as well as Robert Forster (Sheriff Hadley) in his final film role, and to whom the film is dedicated.

The plot follows a small Utah town that is seemingly being terrorized by a werewolf. Terror grips the small mountain town as bodies are discovered after each full moon. Losing sleep,battling his alcohol addiction, an impending divorce, raising a teenage daughter and caring for his ailing father, officer Marshall (Jim Cummings) struggles to remind himself there's no such thing as werewolves.

The Wolf Of Snow Hollow manages to be hugely satisfying as a vulnerable drama, a bleak comedy, and a thrilling werewolf police procedural all in one. And the varying genres at play here coalesce wonderfully to create a satisfying narrative largely anchored by Cummings’ writing and performance. Cummings walks a tightrope of bearing the soul of his lead character to the audience and trusting that, while Marshall is often pathetic and desperate, he’s also so vulnerable that he at least convinces the audience to root for him even if it never quite convinces us we have to like him. All of this builds to an incredible crescendo in which the case is solved at precisely the same moment that Marshall hits some kind of rock bottom. It’s not a story of redemption, nor does it ask us to walk a mile in Marshall’s shoes in order to create sympathy for a toxic and wounded straight white male. It just bares the soul of a human before our eyes, drops that human into a manhunt for a werewolf, and manages to occasionally make us laugh out loud in the process. The filmmaker’s risky mixture of comedy and violence clearly owes a debt to David Lynch as well, a debt that’s acknowledged by Forster’s presence here in his final role before his death.

Robert Forster, in his last role before passing away from cancer in 2019, he gives us a heartwarming yet entertaining performance as Sheriff Hadley. Hadley’s relationship with Marshall has just as much tension as it does love, allowing for what felt like a really genuine family interaction between the two characters. As far as the gore is concerned, fans of horror are going to be in for a real treat. Nothing is as startling as dismembered body parts against the pristine look of freshly fallen snow and there are multiple instances where that takes place. Furthermore, the design of the creature is quite impressive, especially in regards to the amount of detail that was put into it. I appreciated how Cummings held back on the full reveal, instead, he relied upon glimpses of the creature through the use of close-ups and the noises it made as it stalked its victims. The Wolf Of Snow Hollow is a highly amusing, noir-inspired horror flick that brings just as many laughs as it does scares. It succeeds in many ways, and while it eventually settles for a more conventional conclusion, the rest is frequently surprising. Cummings has a gift for telling engrossing stories through the use of dark comedy and outlandish scenarios and I’m honestly so excited to see what he does next.

The Wolf Of Snow Hollow is now available on Digital and Blu-ray.