The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)


director: Jim Cummings
release-year: 2020
genres: horror, comedy, shocktober, werewolf
countries: USA
languages: English
fests: SHOCKtober 2024: WOLFtober

Some immature 20-somethings check into their Utah ski lodge and immediately pick a stupid fight with the local hillbillies, who sabotage the kids' car so they have to take a taxi back to the lodge where they shall surely die. The girl dies. Her genitals are removed, which indicates she was probably killed by The Monster of Florence.

And paw prints.

A weird, young, alcoholic cop, his dad, the elderly bail bondsman from Jackie Brown, and Oates of the Garfunkle And variety come by to investigate. The young cop is also the writer and director of the film, and over-acts every scene. The old cop died before the film's release.

He was sick in the movie, and in real life.

It's very conversational. The cops have long, sarcastic discussions with each other about what might have happened. They talk like actual people talk, which is unusual for a horror movie.

It's also very confrontational.  Everyone likes to argue.

A local ski instructor is attacked on-camera by a wolf suit, her arm being removed in a silly manner before she dies. The soundtrack switches to goofy oompa-oompa music while the cops argue with each other, and it seems to be converting to a comedy of sorts. It flashes between timelines, and it's rather confusing and unclear if they are flashbacks or parallel events.

So there's definitely a wolf.

One cop brings up werewolves, which is roundly rejected. The young cop says "our killer is a guy, and I'm going to find him, and I'm going to kill hi… and we're going to bring him to justice," the same cliché shtick used every time a psychologically unsound character runs a murder investigation. The lab report reports grey wolf hair and wolf teeth marks on the bodies, and Oates asks everyone to let her know if they see Michael J. Fox walking around.

He would be at the basketball stadium.

It has one of those scenes where it introduces a new creepy male character through his first-person view of an increasingly nervous woman. It leads to clips of bunches of useless interviews with local townsfolk about every quasi-suspicious thing they can think of.

The townsfolk think the cop is incompetent.

There's a montage of the cop reading about werewolves in library books while simultaneously explaining perfectly human ways that serial killers operate. He sees the wolfman but fails to nab him, falls into an alcoholic spiral, and the whole town turns against him.

I wish I had books with good drawings.

In perhaps the biggest twist of any werewolf movie so far, the boyfriend of the first victim finds a seam ripper. In parallel, the cop is interviewing the local town taxidermist, who is a very, very tall man. Also: murderer.

He looks less CG in person.