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[Review] ‘The Snowman’ Melts Under the Heat of its Own Trash Fire

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It takes a special kind of movie to make Michael Fassbender look like a bad actor, but somehow, The Snowman accomplishes that feat. Perhaps one of the greatest working actors of our generation, Fassbender is relegated to nothing more than a moronically doe-eyed chain smoker who despite the fact that he constantly has a cigarette in his hand, looks as though he’s never witnessed someone properly light up in his entire life. We’re told he’s an alcoholic, but never given a motive as to why he would’ve turned to the bottle in the first place, or at least hit it so hard that he’d repeatedly wind up lying passed out and drunk in the street. But that’s not surprising. There’s not a whole hell of a lot that makes a lick of sense in this randomly thrown together, terribly written and horribly executed travesty. At best, The Snowman offers up a few laughs, but they’re for all the wrong reasons.

The film starts out in a little isolated cabin, covered with snow and boiling over with abuse and secrecy. A young boy informs his mother that a man has arrived at the door, so she makes herself up in the mirror, shaking all the while. At the kitchen table, the three of them sit uncomfortably as the man quizzes the boy on the history of their country following the aftermath of World War II. For each wrong answer, the man slaps the boy’s mother, eventually hitting her so hard that it sends her flying onto the floor. Instead of helping her back up, the boy scrambles to grab some coffee beans, heads outside, and builds a snowman. The woman threatens to tell the man’s wife about their out-of-wedlock son, and he replies that he’ll simply never show up again. Chasing him out the door, the woman cries, gathering up her child and hopping behind the wheel to follow him down the snowy banks before he disappears forever. At a certain point, the woman lets go of the wheel, dazed, allowing the car to slowly maneuver itself onto a frozen lake, the sheet of ice cracking and giving way beneath her. The boy hops out and urges his mother to do the same, but she simply sits quietly, defeated, and allows the car to pull her down into the icy depths below, abandoning her son and ending her wretched life for good.

Flash forward to twenty-something years later and Harry Hole (Fassbender) is just waking up from another grueling hangover, this time on a children’s frozen playground, eyelids snapping open as an empty bottle slips out of his hand and crashes to the floor. He stumbles back to his home, and then to work, where he is apparently a policeman who has taken a voluntary leave of absence without informing any of his coworkers of his decision. It is at work where he discovers an anonymous letter telling him that someone has been watching him, and all this time while he was sleeping, he was busy building his victim a snowman. Growing delirious and desperate for a case, he teams up with an unlikely female detective named Katrine Bratt (Rebecca Ferguson), and the two begin investigating a series of strange murders, all women, typically with children, and always with a small snowman built outside, facing the house. It is unclear who the killer is or what his grand plan may be, but one thing’s for sure – someone has turned something jolly and sweet into something cold and sinister.

It’s hard to know where to start when describing the problems with this film. It is astounding that this movie was ever made, let alone released to the public. Every time a snowman appears onscreen, it elicits laughs, not shrieks of terror. The evidence that the police collects points them to a killer who targets families while it’s snowing outside. Grasping at straws doesn’t even begin to describe what a ridiculous lack of a case that comes to be. The flashbacks are unnecessary at best, and strangely moronic at worst – why are they dubbing Val Kilmer’s voice? Who the hell made that decision? – and it’s not just the killer who lacks proper motivation for committing his crimes. Every single character onscreen has a flimsy background, made all the worse by their overdramatic performances, which all together makes the film which should be a dramatic thriller seem like a campy, sloppy, poorly strung together lost film from the archives that people would play for laughs as a midnight movie at a retro theater in Los Angeles. This film is such a mess, it’s hard to even properly describe all of its problems without sounding erratic. There are so many issues, but perhaps the biggest disappointment in all of this is that Thomas Alfredson, the man behind Let the Right One In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the director of his trash fire, making it even more of a let down than it would be by itself considering all of the accomplished actors it has sprawling all over the place within the picture. If you’re looking for a few goofy laughs at a ridiculously smug snowman, then you might get something out of this, but if you like your films to have any sort of consistency, proper performances, or even a storyline that’s somewhat worth following, then stay far away from The Snowman, which might possibly be the worst film of the year so far.

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SCREAMBOX Investigates UFOs and Extraterrestrials: Several Documentaries Streaming Right Now!

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As someone who is obsessed with UFOS (or more recently known as UAPs) and the concept of extraterrestrials, I love a good documentary. Sightings have been on the rise since the 1940s, with the atomic bomb seemingly acting as a catalyst for new visitors. But what are these UFOs/UAPs? Is there an explanation or are they simply beyond our explanation? Why are they here? Who are they? How much do our governments know? The questions are endless and so are the documentaries that attempt to uncover the secrets behind decades of sightings and alleged confrontations.

Whether you’re a seasoned viewer or new to the rabbit hole, there’s always a handful of interesting documentaries to get your neurons firing and leave you with sleepless nights. SCREAMBOX is investigating with the addition of several docs, all streaming now on the Bloody Disgusting-powered service. Here’s the breakdown:

Aliens (2021): Beam into this unidentified streaming documentary for a glimpse into Extraterrestrial life. Aliens are hypothetical life forms that may occur outside Earth or that did not originate on Earth.

Aliens Uncovered: Origins (2021): Before Area 51, hidden deep in the desert, the military discovered a hidden gem that helped them create Project Bluebook.

Aliens Uncovered: ET or Man-Made (2022): The crash of Roswell wasn’t meant for New Mexico. In 1947, a neighboring state had 3 major sightings that were swept under the rug.

Aliens Uncovered: The Golden Record (2023): In the late 70s, the US government launched a message to our distant neighbors.

Roswell (2021): This high-flying documentary examines the July 1947 crash of a United States Army Air Forces balloon at a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. Theories claim the crash was actually that of a flying saucer, but what is the truth?

Also check out:

The British UFO Files (2004): Since the 1940’s the British Government has been investigating the Flying Saucer phenomenon. High-ranking military and government personnel, speak out for the first time, offering unique eyewitness accounts and inside information.

Alien Abductions and Paranormal Sightings (2016): Amazing Footage and stories from real people as they reveal their personal encounters of being abducted by Aliens.

And do not miss Hellier (2019): A crew of paranormal researchers find themselves in a dying coal town, where a series of strange coincidences lead them to a decades-old mystery.

These documentaries join SCREAMBOX’s growing library of unique horror content, including Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, Here for Blood, Terrifier 2, RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop, Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story, The Outwaters, Living with Chucky, Project Wolf Hunting, and Pennywise: The Story of IT.

Start screaming now with SCREAMBOX on iOS, Android, Apple TV, Prime Video, Roku, YouTube TV, Samsung, Comcast, Cox, and Screambox.com.

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