Dead Snow

And that's why I cant give it a rating. I froze my arse of being under shovles of snow, waiting to stand up as a zombie nazi. I do think it's a really fun splatter horror comedy, and the direction by Tommy (Wirkola) told me he would go on to bigger projects. It's by far the most entertaining and cold experience in my short life in movies. More fun was the world premiere in Tromsø, where about 1/4 of the invited audience left the cinema when the gorefest started. Highly recomandation from a biased member of the Død Snø crew!

Come on! It was fun! Zombified Nazi soldiers from the war are attacking a bunch of students. And the students fight back. A lot of references to Evil Dead here, a lot of fun, stupendous gore, with all the guts and brains and blood you would ever want.

At times the humour in the film actually hurt the viewing, since it was obviously artificial, so the greatest flaw of the movie, according to yours truly, is that it was not consistent, ever shifting from parody to the real thing. But eve so, it was tons of fun.

Although I have to admit, the funniest part of the movie is when the Nazi zombie officer appears with a spotless officer hat. I can only imagine the poor guy, eternally cleaning his military attire.

The mandatory circumstances to watch a movie like "Dead Snow" are as follows: at a horror themed festival amongst hundreds of outrageously enthusiast and derailed fellow genre fanatics - preferably at 3am on a weekend night – and surrounded by booze and snacks. If this shouldn't be possible, try and gather as many friends together for a drunken movie night, but whatever you do, don't watch this cheerfully repugnant and positively demented movie all by yourself as it is too much of a crowd-pleaser! The formula of laugh-evoking zombie splatter movies isn't new (even Nazi zombie movies have been done before, for example "Shock Waves" and "Zombie Lake"), but spirited and ambitious young filmmakers never cease to invent original variations on the sub genre. Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola took his cast & crew high up north, for a splatter film in a beautiful and isolated snowy setting. A group of medical students – that are also die-hard horror movie freaks – trek to a remote mountain cabin for a weekend of snow scooter fun, drinking and casual sex. The first night of their arrival already, they receive a visit from a mysterious and grumpy old local who tells them a grotesquely absurd story about sinister events that occurred in the area near the end of WWII. The atmospheric tale says that fed up villagers combined forces and chased their Nazi occupants into the mountains where they all froze to death. The clique laughs away the warnings, but subsequently discovers a box of old coins that promptly resurrects an army of Nazi soldiers in a far developed state of decomposition. The first half of "Dead Snow" is slow-paced, atmospheric and full of little tributes to classic zombie movies; particularly "The Evil Dead" movies. The students are standard horror stereotypes, including the nerd and the blond bimbo, and thus the first half also contains childish pranks and gratuitous sex sequences. As soon as the Nazi zombies emerge, however, "Dead Snow" is a non-stop spitfire of blood, gore and intestines. Apparently the production of this film required 450 liters of fake blood, and that isn't nearly so surprising if you watch the end result. There's chainsaw action, decapitations, rope pulling with intestines, axe murders, machine gun concerts and disembowelment. The effects are top-notch in spite of the obvious budgetary restrictions, and the make up art on the zombies is very impressive. The rotting uniformed corpses look quite menacing, especially their leader. The snowy landscapes are beautiful picture to behold, although it's even more amusing to see the white snow color red with blood! Tommy Wirkola is a clearly talented director and hopefully a promising long career awaits him.

Zombie Nazis, what's not to like? Well, Dead Snow wasn't great, but it was a good time especially in the last half. I liked that it took mostly place in daytime instead of the usual night to hide the clunky makeup and special effects. Speaking of which, the Nazi zombies only looked like zombies from their dessicated faces. The Nazi angle was in fact exploited very little, which is a shame, as the Nazi zombies could have been any other slightly-more-intelligent-than-usual zombies in uniforms. There was acceptable makeup, but I've seen better. There were some good gory moments. Some were copies of other films (or "hommages"), some seemed original (but I haven't seen everything).

I particularly liked the parts with intestines (no, I'm not sick :) because they were clever. I didn't care much for the characters (or future victims) as they were cardboard-thin (basically one trait for each one, if that) and sometimes acted stupidly. One of the last confrontations and what ensued after a bite was brilliantly funny in a dark twisted way. There were other funny moments, but not that much. Scary? Not so much, but some tense moments. It veers more towards comedy than horror, but doesn't go full-blown ridiculous (as in the characters stay serious once the bloodshed begins). You could do worse than rent this.

Rating: 6 out of 10 (good)

Heading into Dead Snow I was pretty much expecting a Shaun of the Dead type horror flick. Something with more comedy than horror. Which isn't really the case here. It's consistently filled with small or big jokes, but thankfully it's more horror oriented. I suppose I thought this because of the awesome poster displaying a decapitated half-head of a nazi-zombie lying in the snow giving the onlooker a weird look. Not too mention a dude with a blood-drenched chainsaw behind the head. I'm not the biggest fan of hor-coms, but I was really interested in this one because of the whacky premise. So, was it a blizzard of bliss, or a storm of suckage?

The story revolves around a bunch of medical students getting away for some rest and relaxation during the Easter break. Unknown to them, they've set up camp at the absolute wrong place. Back in the day, evil Nazi's used these hills for an escape route or safe haven way back when, and it's said that this is where they supposedly holed up and eventually died. Well, they ain't all that dead. They look it, but they ain't dead. Our medical students eventually meet these blood-thirsty German maniacs and the red stuff starts flowing. A mad dash for survival ensues, and it all ends up being a 'hail' of a lot of fun.

The flick isn't perfect as it suffers some from small horror clichés, like dumb decision making. But at the same time, they handle these clichés in a somewhat refreshing manner. Some cheap scare tactics are used early on to get you on edge, but those are barely used later on, when violence and creative gore take hold.

Dead Snow really surprised me. I wasn't expecting such a fun flick. The characters were all well-fleshed out, the dialogue well-written and funny, the gore aplenty, the horror nods abundant and awesome (Braindead t-shirts?!), and even the score and soundtrack were good. This should become a pretty big hit for horror fans, well I hope so anyways.