Dead Snow
Studio: IFC Films
Directed by: Tommy Wirkola; Starring: Ørjan Gamst, Stig Frode Henriksen, Jeppe Laursen and Charlotte Frogner
Jul 23, 2009
Web Exclusive
Following the blueprint that George Romero laid out, most zombie films are rife with themes of morality and apocalypse and colored with somber social commentary. Dead Snow bucks that trend. A Norwegian film that amused Sundance with its high concept—Nazi zombies!—it’s too self-aware to grandstand. Instead, it grounds its already campy premise with one of horror films’ most lightweight conventions: the flock of young coeds vacationing in a cabin.
In this case, the cabin is in the remote, snowy mountains of Northern Europe, naturally out of reach from cell-phone signals, where an army of occupying German soldiers perished during World War II. Though there’s no shortage of back-story—much of it delivered by a surly native who warns the partying medical students of evil in the region—how the Nazis became zombies is never explained.
The movie shifts between the colorful, live-action cartoon aesthetic of Shaun of the Dead and the edgier gore of ‘80s horror films, making the most of a few spot-on one-liners that never exhaust the joke and offsetting goofy special effects with some genuinely imaginative ones, mostly without the corrupting assistance of CGI.
Though Dead Snow initially skimps on its undead antagonists, the film’s climax delivers an entire army of them—smarter, faster and better organized than the traditional zombie horde. As the surviving med students prepare themselves for a smackdown, the film defers to a horror screenwriting playbook that insists any victim who isn’t picked off early on must become a furrow-browed, ass-kicking warrior. The action that follows borrows generously from the Evil Dead movies, right down for the convenient chainsaw and the unmistakable rapid zoom shots, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining.
Dead Snow is currently available On Demand through IFC In Theaters.
Author rating: 6/10
Average reader rating: 8/10
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January 10th 2011
2:54pm
Though Dead Snow initially skimps on its undead antagonists, the film’s climax delivers an entire army of them—smarter, faster and better organized than the traditional zombie horde. “Rolex Prices”
October 23rd 2018
7:18am
This movie shifts between the colorful, live-action cartoon aesthetic of Shaun of the Dead and the edgier gore of ‘80s horror films, making the most of a few spot-on one-liners that never exhaust the joke and offsetting goofy special effects with some genuinely imaginative ones, mostly without the corrupting assistance of CGI. Though Dead Snow initially skimps on its undead antagonists, the film’s climax delivers an entire army of them, smarter, faster and better organized than the traditional zombie horde. The action that follows beavers bend cabin rentals borrows generously from the Evil Dead movies, right down for the convenient chainsaw and the unmistakable rapid zoom shots, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining.