The final two projects of the late Robert Forster, who died almost a year ago, have premiered in 2020. The first, most notably, was his posthumous cameo in the fifth season premiere of Better Call Saul. The other is in the new horror-comedy film The Wolf of Snow Hollow, where he plays the ailing sheriff of a rural mountain town in Utah, whose residents and tourists begin falling prey to a werewolf. And it’s certainly more comedy than horror.

However, Forster’s Sheriff Hadley is not the protagonist. That would be his son, John Marshall, played by Jim Cummings (not to be confused with the voice actor who plays Winnie the Pooh and Negaduck), who also directed and wrote the movie. John is an officer and recovering alcoholic dealing with the stress of running Snow Hollow’s police force due to his dad’s poor health. A werewolf serial killer who attacks women during the full moon certainly doesn’t alleviate that pressure. Though he initially dismisses any cause of the supernatural, John still gets thrust into the spotlight since legally the Feds’ hands are tied on this case and local media can’t stop talking about the murders. Everyone is banking on the police to solve this mess, despite how out of their depth they are.

This is certainly a unique horror movie angle, seeing how Wolf initially goes for a traditional slasher cold opening: a couple staying in one of Snow Hollow’s cabins take a dip in a hot tub, and by the time one leaves the other alone, you can telegraph what will happen next. But the werewolf’s murders aren’t really important, since there isn’t a strong whodunit mystery surrounding the killer’s identity. Cummings straight up reveals the monster during one of its attacks. In other words, the werewolf comes across more like a physical allegory for the real villain: John’s anxiety and rage issues.

For the most part, John is an overworked wreck and kind of a jerk. He’s got a competent ally in the Marge Gunderson–like Officer Julia Robson (Riki Lindhome), but most of the force either act snarky about the murders or barely respect John’s authority. He’s also divorced and not doing the best job at connecting with his daughter, Jenna (Chloe East), who’s on her way to college soon and similarly finds her dad a piece of work. The more troubles pile up, the more John ends up relapsing into heavy drinking, which ultimately becomes a more dramatic villain than the actual monster. In other words, this movie has the locale and offbeat style of Fargo mixed with the subtext of The Shining.

At 83 minutes, Wolf of Snow Hollow is breezy and features a lot of good humor in John’s maniac exasperation as he tries to catch the perp and deal with townsfolk who expect matters to be handled like a CSI episode. The juxtaposition in tone is often indicated through Natalie Kingston’s cinematography. Landscape shots of the snowy mountainside are sweeping and gorgeous, while crime scenes utilize a handheld camera and tracking shots that feel straight out of a procedural workplace comedy. It can be rather jarring, but the performances semi-ground it, especially the interactions between Cummings and Forster that highlight John’s burden of living up to his dad’s legacy.

But then there’s the awkward elephant in the room. The depiction of cops as a bit quirky and, in the case of the lead, prone to over-the-top outbursts but still “good,” to put it nicely, feels out of place in the post-George Floyd era. Though Wolf clearly establishes all the personal factors that drive Marshall’s rage, the execution of said rage for awkward laughs can be uncomfortable given the documented instances of police brutality we’ve all witnessed during the past few months. Honestly, in 2020, werewolves barely scratch a top 10 list of the worst killers people fear right now.

The Wolf of Snow Hollow tries to critique masculinity and occasionally is a horror film, but it works best as a dark comedy where the focus is not on a slasher villain but rather the poor sap who has to write up the paperwork after each mutilated body is found. Cummings gets that part of his film rather well. It’s quirky in the right ways, and he thankfully gives Forster a solid final performance to balance it out.