[Review] The Wolf Of Snow Hollow (2020)
There’s something profoundly reassuring when you see the MGM logo and the stars of Orion Pictures spinning across your screen. Fun fact, Orion Pictures has been resurrected and newly re-minted as Orion Classics.
Jim Cummings who had a strong debut with the police drama, Thunder Road (2018) returns with a werewolf flick featuring one of the last and best performances by acclaimed actor Robert Forster (Jackie Brown, Breaking Bad).
Robert is great. He plays a retiring sheriff who is suddenly overwhelmed with a gruesome series of homicides as his health declines.
I love werewolf movies, so I have weird wolf movie standards, or rather, howling expectations.
More on that in a bit, but let me tell you about the female lead. The lead female deputy is a bit of a quirky introvert with a keen eye. She puts on her PJ’s with a gun tucked into the waist band and eats noodles with chop sticks while studying crime scene photos. She is really fascinating to watch as she tries to solve the case murder by murder. She is brought to life by Riki Lindhome, who you might know from Knives Out and Under The Silver Lake.
A lot of the camera work is tight, almost claustrophobic. Especially, when this story spends time with a new victim. Like the poor ski instructor who got creeped out by somebody eyeballing her in the ski lodge after work.
When it is not claustrophobic, it is showing us visuals that make the movie feel distant and isolating.
The lead deputy is the sheriff-in-waiting played by Jim Cummings himself, of course. He is trying to handle the police work with pride and precision, but just like real life he his day-to-day becomes a satire of dealing with townie curiosities, apathy from co-workers, personal problems, and what feels like the chaos of life clashing with the horrendous stress of always being on duty.
One of my favorite scenes is the investigative round-table at the police station in which the lesser known deputies make a case for the killer being an actual werewolf.
One terrifying element is how the killer is always off screen interacting with the potential victims, and the morbid curiosity of speculating whether the killer is a werewolf or not heightens the tension and fear for the safety of certain characters.
Third act is plausible, but has a few moments of astonishment.
I could keep going, but I think you should watch this movie.
Dude, watch it.