The Snowman review – lukewarm serial-killer thriller

From Tomas Alfredson, the director who brought such emotional intelligence to the vampire genre with Let the Right One In, this Nordic crime drama is something of a disappointment. Stridently adapted from a novel by Jo Nesbø, the film casts Michael Fassbender as an alcoholic detective who – metaphor alert – is plagued by the “toxic air” in his mould-filled apartment. A score that gathers force like a crashing avalanche of panic cues us for the serial-killer horror to come. But the film is remarkably casual about the number of dismembered female corpses it accrues – the death of one principal character is chucked away like a used tissue – and quick to blame the murders on the failings of a mother.