The reviews for Michael Fassbender's new movie are savage AF

In another world, a movie about a deranged serial killer who dismembers his victims and transplants their body parts with snowmen could be so entertaining. But this is not that world, and Tomas Alfredson's The Snowman (currently rocking 13% on Rotten Tomatoes) is an incoherent mess. Critics screened the film in time for its Oct. 19 debut and found nothing worth redeeming in its cast, plotting, and shoddy editing.

Here's what they had to say.

The secret comedy

Alissa Wilkinson, Vox:

The overall effect means that as the movie soldiers bravely on, the suspicion begins to build — like icy fingers on your neck — that this is not in fact a crime drama, but a vast punking conspiracy, a bit of avant-garde satire without any clear target. That feeling only grows with the dialogue, which is baffling in its badness. “Maybe this will bring your balls back,” Katrine says to Hole, handing him a cup of vodka. A character speaks of a “pregnancy doctor,” as if anyone calls an obstetrician by that name. At one point, a character says that he is infertile, then clarifies helpfully for those in the back that this means he cannot have children. And there is, of course, the immortal line: “Ah, the great Harry Hole!” (There is one good on-purpose joke in this movie, and it is about murder.)

Katie Walsh, The Detroit Free Press:

Among all of this is some truly gruesome imagery and unimaginable violence, deployed cavalierly, and committed primarily against female victims. Our antihero Hole is himself a bit of a boor, roughing up his female partner to make a point because he’s got to save the day, his way. What a guy. With a perplexing tale and some very odd creative choices, it’s so easy to laugh at “The Snowman,” but this kind of tale shouldn’t inspire laughter.

That missing footage

Director Tomas Alfredson has said in interviews that due to scheduling, his team ended up not shooting a significant portion of the script -- something they didn't realize until the editing stage.

Matt Goldberg, Collider:

It’s clear that The Snowman, to have any chance of working, needed to be a careful balancing act, and that somewhere in this mess of a movie, there’s a thematic through line about absentee fathers, neglectful mothers, and damaged children. Unfortunately, it has a hard time finding its way through the utter wreckage of a picture that’s struggling just to make sense on a narrative level let alone present a consistent subtext that will draw viewers in and allow us to make sense of the killer’s motives.

Guy Lodge, Variety:

It might take an investigator more intuitive than Hole to pinpoint precisely where and how things unraveled in a production that seems to have been second-, third- and fourth-guessed at every turn, and bears the manifold scars and stitches of on-the-fly rethinking. The late addition to the credits of Scorsese’s revered editor Thelma Schoonmaker, supplementing the work of the estimable Claire Simpson, hints at a high level of creative uncertainty over just how to fillet and present Nesbø’s dense, misdirection-filled yarn

Katie Walsh, The Detroit Free Press:

It’s clear from the opening scenes that “The Snowman” is off. It’s edited within an inch of its life, cutting into and away from shots and scenes abruptly. That wonkiness of tone and pace persists throughout. It doesn’t help that the film looks absolutely terrible and the screenplay makes very little sense. Subplots are picked up and abandoned. Characters that seem important fade away.

How did this get made?

Guy Lodge, Variety:

...the best that can be said is that it reworks the text just enough to keep the author’s die-hard fans on their frost-bitten toes. Anyone else, however, is likely to be bewildered by a haphazard structure, a surfeit of dill-pickled red herrings and the blank impenetrability of Michael Fassbender’s Harry Hole, a supposedly rule-averse detective who does markedly little detecting over the course of two hours. (Perhaps that’s his maverick USP.)

Alissa Wilkinson, Vox:

Watching The Snowman keeps you so thoroughly occupied with trying to figure out why the movie itself exists that all other questions become irrelevant.

Matt Goldberg, Collider:

The Snowman, goes off the rails so badly that you can’t help but wonder what drew him to the project in the first place. Despite a top-notch cast, [director Tomas] Alfredson’s spin on the murder mystery is painfully convoluted and thematically incomplete. It’s a movie that’s always threatening to do something interesting before turning to the safety of conventions, leaving it stranded in a frozen wasteland of endless tedium.

Katie Walsh, The Detroit Free Press:

“The Snowman” has everything (just not a coherent plot): creepy abortion doctors, human trafficking, really bad Scandinavian techno, Michael Fassbender passed out in the snow, a terrible wig on Rebecca Ferguson, Chloe Sevigny chopping heads off chickens, J.K. Simmons attempting a Norweigan-ish accent, Val Kilmer singing “Happy Birthday” while chugging vodka out of a sports bottle, and, of course, the bloodiest, most macabre snowmen ever.

The Snowman is now in theaters.