My advice to you: Try to acquire it before you see “The Wolf of Snow Hollow,” because attempting to adjust to his wavelength in this context is a mostly frustrating prospect. Crew model kind of way, but also works hard to show that there’s roiling complexity beneath that superficially appealing exterior.Ĭummings’ characters come with baggage, and watching the actor wrestle with his demons is something of an acquired taste. But the central personality here - the one guilty of sucking up most of the oxygen in the room - is writer-director and star Jim Cummings, who’s handsome in that square-jawed J. Those characters include a violence-averse police chief ( Robert Forster, offering a variation on Tommy Lee Jones’ introspective “No Country for Old Men” routine in his final role) and a scene-stealing officer (“Garfunkel & Oates” alum Riki Lindhome) whose intuition is every bit as sharp as her comic timing. Or more accurately, it treats them as the setup for a uniquely uncomfortable sitcom of sorts, one that’s less concerned with solving the case than it is with showcasing the odd mix of characters tasked with investigating the crimes. Ghastly as that sounds, “ The Wolf of Snow Hollow” treats these murders as a joke.
The situation is worse than that, actually: The insidious lupine assailant rips off their limbs, separates their heads, and leaves a gaping hole where their most intimate parts ought to be. Producers: Matt Miller, Natalie Metzger, Benjamin Wiessner, Kathleen Grace, Matt Hoklotubbe, Michael McGarryĭirector of photography: Natalie KingstonĮditors: Patrick Nelson Barnes, R.Someone - or something - is killing young women in the sleepy town of Snow Hollow. Production companies: New Form, Vanishing AngleĬast: Jim Cummings, Riki Lindhome, Robert Forster, Chloe East, Jimmy Tatro
But first, she’ll need to stand by her man long enough for him to catch this killer in his own circuitous way. Lindhome, so often a supporting player, would be great in that film’s lead.
Julia, you start to think, might secretly be the hero of a more coherent movie unspooling in the theater next door - one about working under men who, however decent they may be, can’t rise to the challenges they face and never realize how much they rely on you. John falls off the wagon and becomes a little hard to take, as his stupor further confuses the film’s tone and creates a speed bump for its plot. The movie has something of a meta-revelation about its genre when, well into research about the women this wolf attacks and increasingly worried for his sexually active teenager, John looks at Julia and wonders, “Huh, do you think women have had to face this kind of danger forever?” A blank stare is the kindest possible response.Īs its predecessor did, Wolf piles pressures and abuse upon its protagonist’s shoulders that sometimes stretch credulity one wonders if Cummings, like mid-career Mel Gibson, enjoys suffering onscreen a bit too much.
Cutting between police business and the crimes, the film shows us the werewolf starting pretty early on it also suggests the beast is an anonymous drug addict who spends his days getting high in a small RV. While John struggles to manage the team, Julia calmly starts adding up clues.Īnd more clues pile on, as a new body is found every night of this full-moon cycle.
They’re more sad, especially when viewed through the eyes of John’s sympathetic, much more professional fellow officer Julia Robson ( Riki Lindhome). Though they command one’s attention, Cummings’ tightly-wound freakouts aren’t as twitchily comic as those of Thunder Road‘s Officer Arnaud. When forensic experts say the body was attacked by a giant animal, and a fellow cop suggests werewolves, John can hardly contain his rage.
Her body is mutilated and there are no suspects, sending townspeople into panicked talk about a serial killer.
Juggling those office politics gets immensely harder when a tourist is brutally murdered.