Nothing warms the anti-yuletide misanthropes’ shrivelled hearts like a good old-fashioned Christmas-themed horror film wherein the evil inside human souls gets unleashed on happy-clappy hedonists. This Georgia-set spooky adventure story, although flawed, indulges that curmudgeonly instinct with a tale of a privileged white North American couple, Mia (Ivanna Sakhno) and Max (Alex Hafner), who arrive at a mountain resort where they plan to spend Christmas snowboarding and making lame jokes about the Overlook hotel from The Shining. This will prove prophetic.
Director Stanislav Kapralov, making his directorial debut with a script he co-wrote with Omri Rose, affords just a little bit of sympathy towards recently orphaned Mia, who desperately wants to start a family. Max, on the other hand, comes across as much less likable, mostly because he insists on using the word “epic” as a superlative despite being above the age of 13. And partly because he insists, no matter how much the locals try to warn him off, that he wants to snowboard on the Black Ridge, which may be haunted by the spirit of a child killed by entitled snowboarders years earlier.
In all honesty, the path towards the film’s final feeble twist is as discernible as a neon pink jacket on the ski slopes. But Let It Snow is well put together, from the spectacular location work to the strong use of sound to the sort of arresting imagery that recalls the haute body horror of Midsommar. Sakhno doesn’t quite match Florence Pugh’s performance in that film – but she does impress with a willingness to get cold and traumatised, and she screams with despair like a real pro.
Let It Snow is released on 4 January on digital formats.
