Dead Snow (2009)
Directed by Tommy Wirkola
Starring Charlotte Frogner, Stig Frode Henriksen, Bjørn Sundquist, Ane Dahl Torp, Jenny Skavlan
A friendly bunch of Norwegian medical students goes to the Alps for some drinking, skiing, and debauchery. They are busy getting down when a mysterious hiker knock on their door. He tells them about this mountainside’s history. Nazis occupied through WWII, taking the precious valuables of all those who lived there. The Nazi's greed is said to be so great, people still see them looking for all the gold the residents hid from them. The students brush off the crazy story and get back to their partying. Everything is fine until they find a box of gold hidden in the floorboards. When the riches are discovered, all hell breaks loose. The cabin is beset by undead Nazis, working as a unit to take down their meager defenses. These friends will have to start fighting back or face the wrath of a long dead evil.
Nazi zombies, much like werewolf cowboys and vampire investment bankers, are the stuff of horror gold. It is that perfect combination of antagonistic forces into one supreme monster. Any movie with Nazi zombies, no matter how terrible it may be, gets brownie points for picking their source of terror. The look of the aforementioned baddies is lovingly detailed. The uniforms look authentic and authentically worn out. The zombie makeup makes frostbite and rot look good. And even though they look great, some of the scariest moments are when we do not see them. The first fourty minutes or so treat the zombies like the shark in Jaws: we only see hints of them in the cold darkness of night. Wirkola and company understand the inherent scares that can spring from the idea, but also see the wonderful comedic opportunities that it brings. People cauterize wounds only to find undead things gnawing on sensitive areas, or have a prolonged fistfight end with a regiment of zombies waiting. While not as slapstick as Evil Dead 2 or Dead Alive, Dead Snow has a wickedly dark sense of humor that never stops abusing its subjects.
The character work in Dead Snow is top notch. These people are likeable and intelligent, recognizing early on that these things attacking them are zombies. This inspires them to follow the movie rules and come up with some rules of engagement. All the actors do a fine job, but Jeppe Laursen nails it as Erlend. The movie nerd of the group, Laursen’s Erlend is both endearing and hilarious all the way to his horrific end. Plus, he wears a Brain Dead t-shirt and that counts for something. A word of warning to any potential viewer; Dead Snow is brutal with its characters. It is not too much of a spoiler to say that things do not end well for anyone involved. However, the ways these characters meet their ends are astounding. The practical effects are nothing short of jaw dropping. They are both a pleasure to watch and difficult to sit through.
Dead Snow is a new classic. It is unrelenting, mildly disturbing, and amusingly twisted. For the horror fan with a taste for the nasty, check this out and brush up on your Norwegian death-screams.
9 out of 10
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