Here Are Some Of The Best, Worst Reviews Of 'The Snowman'

With a cast boasting Michael Fassbender and Rebecca Hall and coming from the director of Let the Right One In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Snowman was primed to become a new serial killer classic. Now that the film is in theaters, critics aren't looking too fondly on the Tomas Alfredson-director thriller and its potential has completely melted.

Our own review called the film "a complete misfire. Don't pay to see it in theaters, don't even spend the $1 on a future Redbox - maybe even save yourself the time of when it hits Netflix in a few months. There's literally nothing to see here."

The film currently sits at 10% on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, which creates an average of films that are deemed either "fresh" or "rotten" by contributing critics.

The dozens of negative reviews can't seem to agree on which element of the film was most underwhelming, ranging from the acting to the directing to the editing to the writing, which didn't bode well for the thriller.

"I'm hard-pressed to remember another police procedural that was so dull, or so encumbered in trying to tell its story," Leonard Maltin shared.

"When the killer's risible psychological motivation is finally revealed, it feels as if the screenwriters began reading Freud for Dummies, but did not even get to the end," The Hollywood Reporter described. "Alfredson has yet to make a terrible film, and The Snowman is certainly not terrible, but it falls way short of what a superior big-budget thriller should deliver."

While the film might not be offensively bad, its the overall blandness of the whole production that is its downfall.

"We live in an era of almost limitless entertainment options," ScreenCrush detailed. "If you want to watch a detective story there are literally dozens you could choose from without leaving your couch, including a few films and television series from Scandinavia. Why, then, watch The Snowman? What separates it from all those other options? Other than a bunch of snowmen, I haven't a clue."

Sadly, even the positive reviews don't sing the film's praises too strongly, often resorting to calling the film "entertaining" or "watchable."

"It's a serviceable, watchable thriller, with very gruesome images, coagulating around psychopathologies of father obsession and son obsession," The Guardian admitted.

The Snowman is merely one novel in a longer series of books, but based on these reactions, we shouldn't expect to see more adventures of Harry Hole coming to the big screen.