The Funniest Thing on Netflix Right Now is the Success of ‘The Snowman’
Netflix just keeps churning out wildly popular comedies; Tim Robinson’s I Think You Should Leave, Chris Rock’s recent stand-up special, a 2017 movie about a frosty Norwegian serial killer – wait, what?? For some reason, the top movie on Netflix right now is The Snowman, the Michael Fassbender-starring police procedural, not to be confused with the children’s Christmas movie that was arguably just as upsetting.
As we’ve mentioned before, The Snowman is a goddamn mess. From the confusing plot to the baffling accent work to the fact that the lead character is literally named “Harry Hole,” which sounds less like a genuine Scandinavian detective and more like an underground nightclub in an anti-porn Chick Tract. It bombed in theaters, and its Rotten Tomatoes score is lower than goddamn Cats. So why is everyone streaming it all of a sudden?
The only logical explanation is that a not insignificant number of people are enjoying The Snowman for its unintentional comedy. While most of us have forgotten all about this disaster or mixed it in our minds with that movie where Michael Keaton dies tragically and is reincarnated as a Frosty-like abomination, The Snowman has survived in the public consciousness mostly due to the memes its terrible marketing campaign spawned.
Many of the film’s posters featured not an image of its attractive movie stars but rather a hand-written note from the serial killer, followed by a crude drawing of a snowman that looks like Olaf on quaaludes. It was probably supposed to seem ominous, but instead felt like the marketing department threw together the ads the morning they were due using only a ballpoint pen and a cocktail napkin.
Soon “Mister Police, I gave you all the clues” memes were everywhere, sometimes making political statements…
Other times, simply calling attention to an amusing coffee burn.
Clearly, Netflix sought to capitalize on The Snowman’s second life as an ironic meme-generator because they announced that the movie was coming to their service using that same, widely-lambasted tagline on Twitter.
Sure, some folks are probably watching it because they like bleak serial killer stories and/or Michael Fassbender, but for many, The Snowman isn’t a movie; it’s a prequel to thousands of internet jokes.
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