Something I've heard many times while discussing horror-comedy movies is that the best ones make the scary moments scary and the funny moments funny. Dead Snow is perfect in that regard. There are some funny moments that are timed perfectly to break tension. It has some scary, intense, and suspenseful moments to go with that as well. I enjoy the zombie mythology here in that it is almost as much of an Indiana Jones nazi-ghost-story as much as it is a zombie movie. It has the classic horror setup of going to a cabin with some likable characters. The practical blood and gore effects are great. Like Romero's zombie movies the zombies have some personality and are memorable in their own right. The only flaw is some of the CGI blood splatter and effects that are now conspicuous upon rewatch. Tommy Wirkola and others had many inspirations in mind and all of them work as homage while still creating their own take on those inspirations.
Synopsis: A party of eight Norwegian medical students travel to a remote Arctic mountain for an Easter weekend filled with skiing and relaxation. After one of their group disappears while on a solo cross-country hike, a mysterious local resident (Bjørn Sundquist) tells the remaining visitors that, in the waning days of World War II, a battalion of Nazi soldiers disappeared into the nearby woods after the residents turned on them, and that their zombified corpses remain on the prowl in the area.
I like how the movie starts with both the men and the women in the friend groups talking about each other. The eight medical students who go to the cabin are Sara, her boyfriend Vegard, Roy and his girlfriend Liv, Martin and his girlfriend Hanna, and the two single people, the movie-loving Erlend, and the beautiful Chris. The women are more nonchalant while the men are much more braggadocious. I like the men talking about "is there any chance of rear entry," and calling Chris "very single." That feels like real conversations men would have but also cinematic. Early on there are many scenes of them tobogganing, snowmobiling, racing with sleds, playing Twister, and talking about movies in a meta way. I enjoy these characters a lot and probably as much as any horror movie that starts with characters going to a cabin or an isolated location. That is something made slasher movies great is having time characters and this could have been just as great of a slasher movie if that is the route the filmmakers had chosen. I also love the hard rock and metal soundtrack throughout. Compared to movies like Shredder and Cold Prey that have similar soundtracks this takes the cake as the best of those 2000s horror movie hard rock soundtracks.
Vegar Hoel as Martin and Stig Frode Henriksen as Roy
Jenny Skavlan as Chris
Charlotte Frogner as Hanna
Jeppe Beck Laursen as Erlend
The movie changes tone when the local comes and tells them the story about the nazis. The opening scene of the movie was Sara getting hunted down by the zombies. I like how scary that scene is as you don't know until a certain point she is being hunted by zombies. You assume it could be an animal or something until the end of the scene. After he tells this chilling story Roy gives the scene some levity by saying something like well we haven't discovered the cure for evil yet to which the local grabs him. That is the type of comedy in this movie where serious moments will be undercut with good timing. There is a moment later where they have made these molotov cocktails and Roy throws one into the side of the wall. There is another funny moment during the siege scene in which a break happens and Roy says "we should have gone to the beach!" Moments like that are so well timed.
There are some great suspense moments as well. The moment where the local is in his tent and he goes outside after hearing something and sees the one zombie with his flashlight and is killed is really well done. The moment where Chris is in outhouse and the zombies are prowling around outside is great. Contrast that with the scene before where Chris sneaks in to have sex with Erlend. That is one of many moments you know the filmmakers wanted as they probably related to Erlend's character and wanted him to be the one to get the hottest girl in the movie. There are some flirty moments between the two before that scene though. When they march to the cabin Erlend brings up how many horror movies start with friends going to a cabin and Chris talks about April Fool's Day. Later when they find the gold underneath the floorboard they both say "fortune and glory," quoting Indiana Jones. Like I said I enjoy these characters and even Martin and Hanna have a cute relationship. There is that montage of character moments early on where they are seen eating hot dogs and they are shown to be quite in love. Speaking of Hanna she is one of the only women I've seen who look pretty hot in dreadlocks so she's got that going for her.
There is an awesome siege scene where the zombies show up. Chris is killed right before she can get to the house in an intense and suspenseful scene. Erlend is grabbed through one of the windows and torn apart in one of the best Tom-Savini-type practical effects in the movie. Later the group splits off as Martin and Roy plan to lure the zombies toward them and Hanna and Liv go off to get help. Vegard had gone off on his own to look for Sara and eventually fell into a chasm where he found her dead body along with nazi paraphernalia and weapons. He eventually gets to fight two zombies, including a great scene where he goes off the cliff with one while holding onto the unfurling intestines of another he stabbed into a tree. That was something I had not seen in a movie before. It is somewhat coincidental timing that the first two Hatchet movies came out around the same time and featured a killer killing someone with their own intestines.
The second half has some awesome zombie carnage including zombies killed with chainsaws, grenades, sledgehammers, sickles, MG-34 machine guns mounted to snowmobiles, and axes. Every trauma you would want to see happens. Limbs are cut off, eyes are stabbed. In terms of carnage this has some of the best zombie carnage you could want. As I said previously the zombies in this are memorable. Ørjan Gamst plays the leader of the zombies, Herzog and he has a Maniac Cop look to him where he looks lively despite being undead. The denture prosthetic he wears is a nice touch. These zombies also use weapons and know how to fight which adds some credibility while making them scarier. Anyone who doesn't think fast zombies are scary should watch this because they seem infinite in number but no one can seem to outrun them either in this movie.
Orjen Garnst as Herzog
Spoiler Section
There are some harrowing moments in the second half of this movie. Almost everyone has a harrowing or brutal death. In something straight out of The Descent Martin goes on a killing spree and accidentally stabs Hanna in the throat when he turns around thinking she is a zombie. Vegard gets torn apart. There is some unfortunate CGI to some of those torn body parts but nonetheless it is effective. Liv gets run down and is forced to watch zombies eat her and then blows herself and them up with a grenade. Roy runs into a tree branch and is smacked in the head before being run down and eaten. Martin gets back to gold and returns it but doesn't realize one piece is in his jacket and has his car broken into by Herzog as the movie ends.
I haven't talked much about some of the other stuff I liked. I always like blood effects that do something memorable. The scene where Vegard stitches up his own throat while some blood sprays out. I do like him using the duct tape to seal it up. That was awesome. I enjoy all the blood that keeps adding to his white jacket. I always like how blood looks different on different surfaces and colors. The scene where Martin amputates his own arm, a really intense moment followed by him immediately getting his balls bitten off is hilarious. The best horror-comedy moment maybe ever. I do like how none of these characters deserve to die and then when they get it you aren't happy though some of them die in awesome and memorable ways. The sin these characters commit is ultimately not letting the past evil of the area rest. Like many horror movies, like The Evil Dead, curiosity is what gets them killed. There are other moments that felt like homages to other movies. The shot of the zombie slowly rising up behind Vegard while out of focus is exactly like the shot of Michael Myers rising up behind Laurie Strode in Halloween. I also like seeing zombies rising from the snow instead of the grave. A welcome change to a trope. This is one of the best zombie movies of the 21st century, as well as one of the best horror comedies of the same time.
Rating: 9/10 Give me completely practical effects and cut out of that CGI and this would be a 10. Maybe some nudity as well. I'm not complaining with what we saw of Chris but actual nudity and feels like a necessity for a movie like this.
Trivia: The character of Erlend wears a t-shirt prominently featuring the words "Brain Dead" in English. Erlend's demise at the hands of a zombie is exactly the same as the first zombie kill in the low-budget New Zealand film Dead Alive (1992)--the zombie gouges the victim's eyes and splits the skull in half.
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