Successfully walking that tightrope between black comedy, grizzly horror, and potent social commentary, The Wolf of Snow Hollow proves itself to be an innovative and entertaining addition to the werewolf sub-genre.

With his second directorial feature, Jim Cummings has established himself as a unique voice in film. His first feature, Thunder Road, was one of the best films of 2018, and now a venture into horror territory brings with it not only Cummings patented style, but a howling good werewolf movie that messes with conventions of the subgenre.

Where Thunder Road dealt with grief, The Wolf of Snow Hollow deals with violence, especially violence against women. A series of murders in the sleepy, snow driven Utah town of Snow Hollow, has placed the community on edge. Feeling the pressure is deputy sheriff John Marshall (Jim Cummings), who on top of dealing with the towns first homicide in years, also has to deal with the ailing health of his father and town sheriff (Robert Forster), his wayward daughter (Chloe East), and his own crippling alcohol and anger issues.

Once again playing a broke shell of a police officer, Cummings hits that  perfect note between awkward and earnest, and plays his characters tragic and tragically funny foibles into a rich composition of flawed machismo. All the while Cummings conveys a stern, yet never tedious no pretentious message about the violent nature of men towards women, with the monster within just as dangerous as those prowling the moon-lit streets.

This potent social commentary plays side-by-side to an equally potent werewolf movie in which an engrossing murder mystery, where the culprit is a beast of monstrous strength and unsatiable lust for tearing bodies apart, grips a small town in a state of fear and paranoia with the town police especially in the crosshairs. Much in the way of grizzly violence is featured to appease gore hounds, and Cummings – along with editors Patrick Nelson Barnes (No Light and No Land Anywhere) and R. Brett Thomas (Red Butterfly) – do a great job with pace and tone, shifting back and forth from grizzly crimes to its aftermaths with smooth precision.

The small-town black comedy stylings of The Wolf of Snow Hollow have drawn comparisons to the Coen Brothers (Fargo), and it is deserved company for Cummings to be in. The blend of horror, black comedy, engrossing mystery, and on key commentary on the beast that lurks within man, results in not only a relevant movie, but a constantly surprising and entertaining one too. It’s Cummings at his howling best.