Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? We’re about to find out in the new horror movie, The Wolf of Snow Hollow. As the latest feature from SXSW darling Jim Cummings, the horror movie is set in a small town where diminished expectations comes face to face with growing clumps of fur, not to mention a body count.
The first trailer for The Wolf of Snow Hollow is certainly promising enough. Cut around the final performance of the late great Robert Forster, the teaser suggests this is not your quietest of sleepy towns. Take Cummings’ lead performance as Sheriff John Marshall. John is reeling from a failed marriage, an estranged and rebellious daughter, and a lackluster police department drowning around him. And all of these vulnerabilities are going to be tested during the rise of each full moon. John thus has the unenviable task of solving a series of brutal murders that occur every month. The synopsis teases, “As he’s consumed by the hunt for the killer, he struggles to remind himself there’s no such thing as werewolves.”
The Wolf of Snow Hollow is the Cummings’ latest feature as writer-director after helming Thunder Road. That latter dramedy went on to win the SXSW Grand Jury Award for narrative feature in 2018 and was one of the most overlooked movies of that year. Cummings also starred in the earlier movie as a police officer, causing probably more than a few to wonder if there could be a greater thematic connection to Snow Hollow.
The new chiller is the first werewolf movie we’ve seen in a while, following in the tradition of filmmakers that run the gamut from Lon Chaney Jr. to Joe Dante. To date it might be arguable the best werewolf movies ever produced were The Wolf Man (1941) and An American Werewolf in London (1981). But The Wolf of Snow Hollow appears to be taking a different tact, as told from the perspective of the would-be wolf hunters, making it similar to a modern day the Beast of Gévaudan. That true historical event occurred in the mid-18th century, when rural citizens in France alleged a monster of an animal killed more than 100 people over the span of several years.
The Wolf of Snow Hollow also stars Riki Lindhome, Chloe East, Jimmy Tatro, and Oscar nominated Robert Forster as Sheriff Hadley. The picture is releasing in theaters and on VOD on Oct. 9.