The Snowman (2017) - WORST REMAKE EVER

 

In a way, I kind of have a love/hate relationship with remakes. Some of them are great. In fact my favourite movie, "John Carpenter's The Thing", is technically a remake of an older film. David Cronenberg's version of "The Fly" is of course a disgusting classic, as is the lesser known Chuck Russell version of "The Blob". There is "Cat People" but we don't talk about "Cat People", unless it's in reference to Nastassja Kinski. 

"Nastassja, is that your father, Klaus, poking a rifle into my back,
or are you just glad to see me?"
"What?"
"Please, help." 

But all those films had one thing in common, and no it wasn't just that they actually updated the stories of the original films with groundbreaking special effects of the time and the unique visions of the individual directors. It was that they were all made in the fucking 80s and therefore they piss on anything that ever came out in subsequent decades. And yes, fat nerds, that includes your precious MCU. How does it feel knowing that each viewing of "Avengers: Endgame" is directly correlated with a marked decrease in Testosterone levels? I don't need a fucking study. You need Kurt Russell.

"Is that a shotgun in my hands pointed at your face,
or am I just glad to see you?"
"What?"
"NO." (Shotgun blast)

(Side Note: Even though "The Thing" is my favourite movie, let it be known that "Tombstone" is the best movie ever made and don't ever let the question part from your lips ever again, less you want them NO'd into oblivion)

So anyways, the original "The Snowman" is a Christmas classic. Fine animation, atmospheric music and an iconic main song sung by Aled Jones culminates in a bittersweet little tale told without a single line of dialogue. It's animation and indeed visual storytelling at its finest. Plus it made a cracking Irn Bru ad. 

 This on the other hand:

This is a fucking travesty.

I'm sad to admit that I was pumped for this movie. I mean sure, Disney's live action remakes of their own animated classics have largely been an exercise in redundancy as far as I'm concerned, but this was different. They got the guy who made "Let the Right One In" to direct and personally I thought Michael Fassbender was a fantastic choice to play the titular Snowman. 

But upon viewing the film I was utterly shocked to find that he never once dons a snowman costume. In fact there are multiple snowmen in the film, not just one; and not only does Michael Fassbender not play any of them, none of the others actually do anything. They sit there. They don't even fly or tragically melt at the end making children cry.  

Plus there are a lot more dead women than I remember in the original film. Granted it's been a while since I've seen it and my memory is fuzzy, but I don't recall there being any serial murderers in the original. I know Hollywood has this obsession with "gritty reimaginings" of things but quite frankly this is exactly the same as pissing on the Quran. 

"Who cares, GLENN," I here you dribble incoherently, "It's a different movie, GLENN. You should separate it from the original, GLENN." Okay, fine. But even if you do separate it from the original in your mind and treat it as its own entity, the movie is still shit. Shit I tell you!

Michael Fassbender plays Inspector Harry Hole, who works for the Oslo police and is an amalgam of just about every hard drinking, chain smoking, estranged and generally traumatized TV detective out there. When women start turning up missing with only the calling card of a snowman built near the scenes of the crimes, it's up to the Inspector and his plucky female sidekick to discover the Hole truth. 

Firstly, this is pretty much every serial killer movie ever made but worse. As stated previously Harry Hole is the archetype Will Graham-esque traumatized detective, who despite being an alcoholic with a habit of sleeping in children's playgrounds, also happens to be a brilliant practitioner whose cases are studied in universities. You have the estranged family issues, which don't amount to much; there's some implied corruption in local business circles, which, again, amounts to very little; and whilst the movie takes itself undeservedly seriously this film is home to some occasional moments of serial killer silliness that seem more at home in an episode of "A Touch of Cloth" than a serious mystery film. 

For example; Chloe Sevigny stars as one of the ultimate victims of the killer and upon the discovery of her headless corpse, the police investigate the nearby area only to find her severed head perched atop the body of a snowman, complete with stick arms and buttons made out of clusters of coffee beans for some reason. Although this shouldn't have surprised me given Chloe Sevigny's past of giving head for a film production. 

It's just one of the moments where you sit there and think "Why?" Why would anyone do that? The killing women part I get. Hell, I even sympathize. But not even the Zodiac would pull this kind nonsense. And when a further moment comes where the killer blows off Val Kilmer's head with a shotgun (yes, Val Kilmer is in this film and suffering from some sort of square face syndrome) and places an apparently pre-made snowman head on the stump where Val Kilmer's head used to be, this is when you start to realize that this movie may be taking itself seriously, but it certainly isn't taking you seriously. 

Speaking of Val Kilmer, it took me a while into the movie to realize that all of his scenes in the film are in fact meant to be flashbacks. This only further complicates the overly convoluted and incoherent plot. Entire plotlines established are never resolved and you end up phasing in and out of paying attention and wondering why anyone is where they are, what's going on and why in the frozen hell I see pictured before me (AKA: Norway) should I give a fraction of a shit? It isn't surprising then when Tomas Alfredson, the director, comes out and says that a good percentage of the screenplay was never actually filmed due to time constraints.  

On top of all this you have what has got to be the shittiest serial killer death of all time. I figured out who the killer was fairly early on and when it's finally revealed who he is and what his reasons for doing what he's doing are - SPOILER ALERT: His abusive dick of a father didn't want him, he and his mother tried to chase him down in their car as he left which resulted in his mother going catatonic at the wheel and allowing the car to skid out on to the ice and sink into the lake with the future murderer managing to get free before the fateful moment - we are treated to the inevitable scene where the detective's loved ones are kidnapped and held hostage by the murderer. Pretty textbook so far.

A scuffle ensues and Harry Hole chases the killer down to a frozen lake for a showdown that mirrors the opening flashback and... get ready for this... the killer falls down an opening in the ice. So I guess you could say that... the Hole won in the end. 

Seriously though, what a shitty villain death. The Tooth Fairy killer's fake death in "Red Dragon" was better than that. You mean to tell me you had me track through ten inches and two hours of a boring, incoherent, incomplete and cliched mess of a fucking serial killer movie, and you can't even give me a proper villain death? I hate to harp on this but a good villain death, in my opinion, is an important thing. The audience wants to see the killer get his comeuppance and all you can give us is him falling down a fishin' hole and not coming back up again. Terrible.

And to top it all off, they make a point of trying to blame everything on the killer's illegitimate father. You know, instead of his mother who decided to commit suicide in front of him and possibly even kill him in the process. Good job, drunk detective who sleeps in playgrounds and has no actual family of his own. Your opinions are duly noted. 

 

Add to all this a dreary film-making style, largely morose performances and the Hole's female sidekick's revenge plotline ends in a wet fart with no real emotional reaction and what you're left with is a serial killer film that's somehow worse than "The Bone Collector". And believe me, that's saying something. 

Overall Quality Rating - 1/5

There is almost nothing I can recommend this movie for. It's not as imaginative in its filming or direction or concept as "Let the Right One In" and it lacks any of the intrigue of the similarly convoluted "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy". It certainly doesn't live up to the quality of past genre standards like "Manhunter", "The Silence of the Lambs" or "Se7en". Nothing shocking, nothing memorable, and overall the WORST REMAKE EVER.

Idiot Rating - 1.5/5

I give it an extra .5 for the Idiot Rating due to the aforementioned snowman corpse art, as well as the fact that every time I saw Chloe Sevigny's severed head all I could think of was that they'd best make sure Vincent Gallo wasn't allowed anywhere near the set. Outside of that you really don't have much to laugh at, although I will say that J.K Simmons' weirdly well executed posh English accent provided a few moments of mirth. Plus scenes where Val Kilmer acts like a drunken lunatic on the roof of the police station probably represents this film at its apex. 

Doc Holliday, what happened to you?

"Hey, is that a gun in your pocket or is that Tuberculosis?"
"It's Tuberculosis."
"Oh." (Dies of Tuberculosis)

 

I'm DeadEye and Merry Christmas ya filthy animals.