Jim Cummings has certainly piqued my interest in his work. The Wolf of Snow Hollow is my first exposure to him, of which he wrote, directed, and starred as the main character in this Horror Comedy Werewolf movie. His first true success was Thunder Road from 2018, which has received high remarks across the board.
With The Wolf of Snow Hollow, Jim Cummings had a much deeper wallet to work with it seems, as well as more well-known actors, such as Robert Forster and Riki Lindhome. I’ll have to check Thunder Road out, for I really liked Jim Cumming’s style of production with his acting and writing.
In The Wolf of Snow Hollow, Jim Cummings plays John Marshall, a police deputy in a small Utah town. He is trying to balance the stresses of his job, raising a teenage daughter, a pissed off ex-wife, staying true to the code of Alcoholics Anonymous, a father whose health is ailing, and handling the burdens of being the son of the town Chief of Police.
And that’s when grisly murders begin to occur in his little town.
Perfect timing for John, right?
They aren’t typical murders, either. Animalistic decimation of the victims leads them to believe the killer is an animal. Some of John’s colleagues even throw ‘werewolf’ out to the forefront as the suspect, whether in jest, speculative, or in earnest. Conveniently, the murders all occur on the night of a full moon, lending credence to that ‘outlandish’ theory.
Either way, John Marshall has to sort through the noise of his life responsibilities while solving the murders before more people are killed. All at the same time trying to convince everybody, including himself, that werewolves do not exist.
As the victims start to pile up, John’s grip on things slip resolutely out of his hands, pushing him past the boiling point. The Wolf of Snow Hollow is as much a movie about the beasts within John Marshall as it is about the beastly killer on the loose in the town. John falls off the wagon with the drinking, which attributes to the path to his destructive out-of-control self. The movie reaches a point where John ultimately has failed in all aspects of his life and he hits rock bottom.
At times, in movies, rock bottom is when the hero picks themselves up and resolves the problems and challenges facing them. The Wolf of Snow Hollow has an interesting quirky way of handling this but is the set-up for the climactic ending. This added depth and potency to the movie. Which I absolutely loved!
Overall, The Wolf of Snow Hollow has its unique hairy footing within the werewolf realm/genre. The humor throughout the movie was dark, subtle, but outrageously funny if you can catch on to the style. There was a peculiar tone and pace to the entire movie. One which I don’t think I grasped at first and may not have even realized until the twist at the end of the movie. When the “Aha!” moment came it was like this movie's essence clicked into place in my brain.
The blood and gore was presented to the viewer in quick gruesome flashes, so the focus wasn’t solely trained on that part of the movie. The Wolf of Snow Hollow was more character driven through the reactions of the people experiencing the events, as well as the interactions between them.
The scenes in which the victims were attacked were very well-done, not full of blood and guts, but the sounds made them pretty brutal. The victims were also not just portrayed as another dead body in a horror film. They give us just enough insight into the person before being attacked, and who they were, to add sympathy for them. Another neat trick they did with those scenes, is that they would flip between the person being attacked, then to John as he’s trying to figure out what’s going on, then back to the attack, and then back to John, who would then get the call that there was another murder. I think this lends credit to Cummings’s directing style.
Jim Cummings acting is spectacular with his dry calm comments and facial expressions on the surface, but a man boiling with a beast of his own underneath clawing and fighting its way out. When John crashes into an alcohol-induced state, Jim Cummings gets to let loose as an actor. Robert Forster, Riki, and the other actors played their roles just right to help complete the package.
Being that the werewolf genre hasn’t had the greatest record of producing a multitude of high-quality movies, I was rooting for The Wolf of Snow Hollow to be worthy of a good score, and to come out on top.
My opinion is, ‘yes, yes it did’. But in a much different fashion than you would think. You must watch it to perhaps understand what I am hinting at with this one.
I usually am cringing and keeping my fingers crossed when hitting ‘play’ with a new attempt at a werewolf movie, in hopes that the movie will stand out above others. With The Wolf of Snow Hollow I know I can hit ‘play’ with a grin on my face. I’m pretty excited about this one.
A couple side notes, I was a little disappointed the first time they show the werewolf but, having finished the movie in full, that disappointment faded entirely. They did a good job of showing more of a hulking shadow rather than some crummy CGI version of a lycanthrope. Also, I feel like the wrap-up at the end of the movie could’ve been a little beefier to support the ‘who-dunnit’ aspect, because, we all know with werewolf movies, there’s a little bit of sleuthing and mystery that occurs in finding out who the killer was in human form. Though…it gives me reason to go back and watch this one again, which I’d be glad to do so.
One last note. Unfortunately, this was Robert Forster’s last bit of acting before he passed away in 2019. Rest in peace Robert Forster!
I hope you get a chance to view this one and chime in, since I love a good conversation about Horror movies!
The Wolf of Snow Hollow
Released: 2020
Rating: R
Director: Jim Cummings
Writer: Jim Cummings
Stars: Jim Cummings (The Block Island Sound), Robert Forster (Jackie Brown, Mulholland Drive), Riki Lindhome (Kinves Out, Last House on the Left 2009)
IMDB Rating: 6.2 out of 10
Rotten Tomatoes: 90%
Metascore: 68 out of 100
Rent/Buy as of Blog posting: Prime Video, GooglePlay, Vudu, YouTube Video, Redbox ($4.99 - $5.99)
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