Review of The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020) by Movieturtle — 09 Oct 2020

Quite the interesting experience of a movie and one I was not expecting. If you came to this movie blind, expecting a horror/thriller, you are also likely not going to get what you expect. The Wolf of Snow Hollow is a well directed and edited mystery, with fantastic sound, abounding misdirects, and a slew of dislikable characters.

From the opening sequence to the final few minutes, almost every interaction is well presented as hints to solving the mystery that ultimately fall flat. Suspicious characters, the main character having incredible hearing, social dominance interactions; all ways of making you think the Wolf is the sheriff or his son or the lead lady, but it all leads nowhere and sputters out in an unknown villain. This movie comes across as a whodunit, but it most certainly is now.

The messaging that is present throughout the movie, and I now find is even in the trailer, is extremely heavy handed. Humans are the real monsters created from anger, drinking, drugs, sex, abusive relationships, nepotism and some more subtle jabs at hidden ones like sexism. It's constantly there until the very end and even plays at undermining any kind of good value the characters may have. Alongside this is a presentation of the lack of understanding of the common people with respect to the difficulty and issues of police work that again leads to nothing but making the entire town seem like terrible people.

Ultimately, I enjoyed this movie on a technical level, the story until about half way through, and the characters almost never. I doubt I will watch it again.