I’ve decided to subject myself to 31 days of horror films for the month of October. It will be a mix of rewatching stuff I haven’t seen in a while and brand new things. Day 24:

THE SNOWMAN (2017) – dir. Tomas Alfredson

I saw the trailer for THE SNOWMAN a few months ago and when the it was revealed the killer puts people’s heads on top of snowman, I was stunned it was the premise. Then it got even more weird when Michael Fassbender (playing a detective named HARRY HOLE, no joke) declared the killer “completely insane” as if it this was revelation considering his murder MO.

It’s weird because the film has the feel of giallo film. Like if Dario Argento, Mario Bava, or Umberto Lenzi (RIP) directed this 40 years, it would probably be pretty rad and have a soundtrack I’d be listening to right now. The killer even has the same murder weapon from Argento’s TRAUMA (1993).  A film with a premise this silly should not be taking itself as seriously as it does. That’s the film’s problem is that it is just boring. It’s not even that well shot despite having really interesting locations. They choose not to highlight that at all and it makes the film feel so flat.

None of the people that populate the film have any sort of character. Harry Hole is an alcoholic who seems to be able to do his job. His partner Katrine (Rebecca Ferguson) is on some sort of revenge mission. Chloë Sevigny shows up to play a surprise twin that never shows up again. There are no arcs in the film, people stay the same.

It doesn’t help that apparently the film didn’t get to film key scenes and had little time for pre-production. It all feels very slapped together and director Alfredson has said as much when it came to the editing, “when we started cutting we discovered that a lot was missing”. Entire storylines have no resolution and motivations seem non-existent due to the lack of material.

I saw it on a discount day and was still mad I wasted my time with the film. One of the few highlights is the killer likes to listen to Hot Butter’s “Popcorn” during his crimes so that brought me a slight joy during the course of the film. Other than that, avoid the film.