Dead Snow

Dead Snow
2009 - Norway
Directed By Tommy Wirkola



SYNOPSIS

A group of seven friends on Easter break from med school head to a remote cabin deep in the Norwegian wilderness. Unbeknownst to them, the area used to be a major Nazi stronghold. The Nazis remain all these years later... as zombies!



MY THOUGHTS

It's always fascinating to see how people from a different culture handle a very familiar story archetype... in this case the standard slasher horror film where a group of teens encounters an evil that picks them off one by one. The film's plot echos The Evil Dead (it's even name-dropped in the film) Nightmare On Elm Street and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre among other classic American horror films.

Dead Snow adheres to many modern Hollywood horror cliches.... heavy metal music (though sung in Norwegian...) several cheap scares (not involving the villains...) a stranger with the back story to set up the film... the slutty chick is the first of the group to go... etc. The film uses these cliches to poke fun (and pay homage) at the genre in far more subtle ways than Scream and its sequels did.

The film isn't all jokes though.. the humor is always there but takes a backseat to the suspenseful and scary scenes to create an excellent sense of realism. Director Tommy Wirkola creates the perfect sense of dread that fill the film, even when we're seeing the most absolutely beautiful scenery.

Like all the great zombie films, Dead Snow delivers with a ton of gore. Heads are torn apart, bodies are eviscerated, zombies meet chainsaws... and the blades of a snow-blower engine.
The makeup is outstanding and realistic and would fit in perfectly in a George Romero zombie film.
Much of the goriest gore is done during nighttime scenes, which keep everything dark and keeps the effects from possibly being less hokey-looking. It's far more horrific keeping those scenes partially in the shadows.

The characters were far more fleshed-out and seem more like real people than in your average horror film. There's no 'jock,' 'nerd,' 'slut,' 'girl-next-door-type,''weirdo,' 'stoner' and the other flat characterizations that flood other films in the genre.

Any fan of zombie movies should definitely seek this one out... it's one of the best and is a blast.