Review of The Snowman (2017) by Angel S — 19 Oct 2017

FROSTY'S GONE PSYCHO!!!

The Snowman.

I would call this film interesting, but not for the casual viewer. At 2 hours, this murder mystery really takes it's time, & some would say it could be cut by about 30 to 45 minuets, but I'm glad it didn't rush through the plot; although there were a few kinda slow moments, but it made up for it with great atmosphere.

The cast was really good. Once again, Michael Fassbender takes an otherwise generic role, in this case a detective with a chip on his shoulder & a half-ton of emotional baggage, & makes it drip with mysterious pathos; he makes us ask "why is he like that?" "Did he have another family?" "What's his story?"; he really is a great actor. His partner in crime fighting has her own subplot, & you really wonder if their stories are linked. The side & main characters all seem to be somewhat shifty, couple that with the bleakness of a Norwegian winter, & I felt like I was in a Steven King story, it was very impressive. The villain was a total surprise, I wasn't sure who was whom or who was safe, I couldn't even begin to guess where the story was gonna go.

There are some gore effects, & while there was one obvious CG one, the rest were practical & very well done.

The Snowman is a very slow paced film that I wouldn't recommend to hard core slasher fans, but if you're into murder mysteries which take their time, build multi dimensional characters, & don't make the killer obvious right at the beginning, this 3 outta 5 star chiller is not too shabby.