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Review: ‘The Wolf of Snow Hollow’ is Tender, Tragic and… Hilarious?
Jim Cummings’ second feature film is ambitious in its messages on police incompetence, masculinity and the historical abuse of women
The Wolf of Snow Hollow is much more complex than it seems on first glance. Billed as a horror-comedy which sees a full-of-rage police officer in a small, cozy town suddenly have to taken on a werewolf, I never would have expected that the film would in fact be a quiet tragedy, full of pains that accurately reflected reality.
Jim Cummings ambitiously writes, directs and stars in The Wolf of Snow Hollow. It is, quite clearly, a passion project and brings with it elements from his debut feature Thunder Road which I saw and enjoyed when it released in 2018 — both films star Cummings as a police officer grappling with masculine difficulties, trying to live up to a certain image of the all-American cop.
This film takes that focus a step further. What begins as a well made and engaging creature feature soon grows outwards into a poignant look at a violent alcoholic. But it is more complex than that, too, as we get to know that violent, mean character intimately and we come to understand his pain. Cummings’ character, John Marshall, is not only excellently performed but also very well defined in Cummings’ script. We meet him in an Alcoholics’ Anonymous session, introducing himself but very quickly slipping into a grim monologue about how he wishes that he could hurt his ex-wife just so that she would acknowledge his existence. This awkward moment, at first, appears to be played for a cringe-comedy laugh, followed by an awkward silence… but the rest of the film reveals the true intentions behind this opening.
We spend some time getting to know John and his circumstances, the difficulties that he is facing. Not only is he in a high-stress job which demands consistent overtime and difficult work, but he is also struggling with his ex-wife, his father is having heart difficulties and his daughter is soon to be moving to college. Evidently, these issues along with his job and the pressure placed upon him to find the werewolf and stop it put too much stress on him, as he turns back to alcohol for solace. He has a venomous tongue…
