In honor of True Detective Season 4, let’s talk about some of the best snow based horror movies. Snow can add so much to a story. It can create isolation, symbolism, beautiful aesthetics or boundaries between characters. Here are the best snow set horror films.
The Lodge (2019) One of the most haunting horror films from the last five years, The Lodge uses snow to trap a woman with her two future step children in a remote house. Everything about this movie is bleak and dark and horrifying. The film stars Riley Keough, with an appearance by Alicia Silverstone. In The Lodge, the snow demonstrates the pure mental isolation and entrapment of the characters, and the situation they are in. This film is not for the faint of heart.
The Shining (1980) Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, The Shining stars Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. The Torrance family become caretakers of The Overlook hotel during the off season, based on Stephen King’s novel from three years earlier. Snow becomes one of the many factors that leads to the downfall of Jack. Both the movie and the book are worth consuming separately, and feel distinctly different. Which, despite the frustration of the author, creates such an interesting experience for the audience. Two creators who took the same story in essence and told it in their own ways. Plus, the novel is based on a very real haunted hotel.
Misery (1990) Another horror movie based on a Stephen King novel, Misery was directed by Rob Reiner. It famously stars Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes, and James Caan as Paul Sheldon. Wilkes rescues famous author Paul Sheldon from a car accident and “cares for him” as she keeps him locked away in her house.
Let The Right One In (2008) A Swedish language film, Let the Right One In stars Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson, who play a bullied boy and strange potentially dangerous girl. This film depicts bleakness on several levels. The landscape is cold and gray, but the world that our characters live in also feels hopeless and dark.
The Thing (1982) Starring Kurt Russell, The Thing tells the story of a group of scientists who are working at a research center in Antarctica when a shapeshifting creature starts to terrorize the crew. The movie was directed by John Carpenter, one of the all time masters of horror.