Lending credence to the worst suspicions of hominochionophobics everywhere, the trailer for new crime thriller The Snowman suggests that those wintery children’s creations may be harboring awful secrets. Based on the bestselling novel by popular Scandinavian crime author Jo Nesbø, the film follows a detective (Michael Fassbender) investigating the disappearance of a woman on the day of the first snowfall of winter—which, as we all know, is a crime squad’s least favorite day to investigate disappearances. Suspecting an old serial killer is back, he takes on a new recruit (Rebecca Ferguson) and together they work to connect the decades-old cases to the new one, hoping to find a link and uncover the mystery before the next snowfall, when he thinks the killer will strike again.
Along with being based on a globally popular book, there’s a wealth of talent both in front of and behind the camera on this project. Along with Fassbender and Ferguson, it costars Charlotte Gainsbourg, J.K. Simmons, and Val Kilmer. Not only that, but it was shot by Tomas Alfredson (Let The Right One In, Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy), no stranger to making compelling cinema out of icy mysteries. Shot entirely in Norway, the trailer doesn’t reveal if Fassbender makes lots of jokes about how it was probably a viking that did it, but let’s assume so, because that would just be smart marketing. The Snowman will take shape in theaters October 20.