Dead Snow

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.

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 medical students Martin (Vegar Hoel), Roy (Stig Frode Henriksen) and Erlend (Jeppe Beck Laursen) travel with their friend Vegard (Lasse Valdal) to meet with the girls Hanna (Charlotte Frogner), Liv (Evy Kasseth Røsten) and Chris (Jenny Skavlan) and spend vacation in the isolated cabin in the wilderness of Øksfjord that belongs to Vegard's girlfriend Sara (Ane Dahl Torp).

When they arrive, the do not find Sara but they believe she is practicing sports on the snow. Soon a weird traveler (Bjørn Sundquist) visits them and tells the story about the resistance of the locals during the World War II against the Nazi invaders that were pursued and assumed frozen to death.

On the next morning, Vegard drives his snowmobile seeking out Sara in the mountains. Meanwhile his friends are attacked by a Nazi zombie army led by the evil Commander Herzog (Ørjan Gamst) and they have to fight to survive. Will they succeed in their intent?

"Død Snø" is a zombie comedy by Tommy Wirkola with a very similar storyline of "Necrosis" by Jason Robert Stephens and released on the same year (2009). In common, both authors seem to have been inspired by "Evil Dead" and using different evil.

The Norwegian film is funny and gore and I like this combination. The special effects are great and fans of the genre will never be disappointed. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

I enjoyed this movie more than I should have done, which makes you question why does a really basic idea with absolutely no plot, logic or common sense make for good viewing? Because it was fun.

All that matters when it comes to movies of this genre is that you feel satisfied by the rolling credits and your brain receives the right amount of serotonin or whatever mood enhancer your brain requires. If you want to look at the technical aspects of this film, it was total nonsense, but who cares when a zombie flick like this provides all the gratuitous stupidity and gore you could realistically ask for?

Often, movies of this ilk take themselves too seriously and try to be bigger than their net worth, when instead they should be chucking hordes of rabid zombies and entrails at you instead, with buckets and buckets of blood!

There are some really good laughs in this one: recommended.

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!