Movie Review: Dead Snow

Nazi zombies. In the snow. I feel like I should have been more weary of a film with this premise, but strangely, I was not. I had faith. I heard about it a long time ago, and thanks to my new membership with Netflix (I know, right? How much of a procrastinator am I?), I was able to finally see it. Who doesn't want to see some Nazi zombies in the snow?

See, I should have learned this by now. Most of the movies that I get really excited about and think are just going to be awesome, are in fact, usually NOT. The ones that I often pick up on a whim end up being totally great. Like Dead Snow. Loooooved it.

The plot sounds familiar - group of pretty people go to a remote cabin in the mountains to have fun and are instead attacked by Nazi zombies from WWII. How they became zombies is never explained, but honestly, do you really care? I'm more curious now about the life expectancy of a zombie. I mean, these dudes looked pretty good for zombies, and even better for 70 year old zombies. I wonder what their secret is...

Back to the show. So the group starts to split up one by one, as they so often do in these movies, and are therefore one by one attacked by the zombies. It's a likable group of characters who all actually seem like they are friends. I hate those movies where there are all these different types of people that are always mean to each other, and we're supposed to believe that they are friends? No wonder they usually turn on each other when things get rough. But the group in Dead Snow is believable, with no cliche characters or over-sexed couples hooking up every five minutes. Although there is one hook up in an outhouse. An outhouse? Really? In the snow? Mmmm, sure sounds sexy to me.

Question: Why do they always have to make fun of the movie nerd for being a movie nerd? I'm slightly offended.

The weird thing about this movie is that there is no real main character to follow. It jumps all over the place, which is sort of a good thing because it makes the film more unpredictable. I thought Vegard, the one most knowledgeable about the area would be the sole survivor, then oops! Not so much. The chick with the dreds? She seems tough. Oh, wait. I guess not. But as likable as the characters are, that doesn't mean I don't want to see them chopped into tiny pieces by Nazi zombies. In the snow. I'm sorry! I can't get over that! They should have just called the movie Nazi Zombies in the Snow. Hey, it worked for Snakes on a Plane.

There are some good kills in this flick - a lot of them intestine-related, too. At one point, one of the men is hanging off a mountain using one zombie's intestines as rope while another zombie clings to him. That's the kind of ingenuity I like to see in these indy films.

More gore highlights:
1) the always wonderful "all appendages getting ripped off at the same time" gag
2) fingers in the eyes and then head ripped apart
3) various decapitations and amputations of zombies
4) self-mutilation via chainsaw
5) a rather strange death where a dude turns around and sees his intestine attached to a tree

My vote for favorite kill goes to number 2.

So first impression is that Dead Snow is a nicely paced and well-shot take on the zombie movie. It uses a different setting and quite odd foes (NAZI ZOMBIES IN THE SNOW!) to create a deliciously gory and at times very funny flick. As a warning for those who need it, the film is in Norwegian and there are subtitles. If you feel like you can't watch a movie with subtitles, then you can just go fuck yourself because you're an idiot.

One other thing: Not that I have any trips to Norway planned in the near future, but where exactly is this mountain filled with NAZI ZOMBIES IN THE SNOW? Because I really want to go there.



NAZI ZOMBIES IN THE SNOW. NAZI ZOMBIES IN THE SNOW. NAZI ZOMBIES IN THE SNOW.

There. It's out of my system.