ManWithPez

If seeing this doesn't get you to see this movie, you're dead already!

By now, it should be a familiar story.  How do you know it’s familiar?  Because on their way to their cabin in the woods, this group of plucky young people begin listing all the movies they’re about to rip off.  For all that, however, Dead Snow ends up being one of the funner, more entertaining horror films I’ve seen in a long time.

I’m going to stumble over some names here, like I did in my review of The Devil’s Backbone.  Mostly because when it’s not an english language film, I tend to forget the names and try to concentrate on the action.  Names aren’t going to mean much here anyways.  We start off with a terrific opening sequence that let’s you know what you’re up against.  Well, you don’t really get to see it, but you see it’s wearing a Nazi uniform, so, you know…extra revulsion right there.  Also, against the backdrop of this wonderful little chase scene, In the Hall of the Mountain King is playing.  It’s kind of a silly evocative song, sure, but, when you’re in the mountains, and you’re being chased by something in a Nazi uniform that isn’t human, what else would you want to hear?

Our intrepid group of young medical students come up for a holiday in a shanty (sorry) cabin in the mountains of Norway.  How do I know it’s Norway?  Because they mention a fjord, that’s how.  While they’re all partying down like the idiot college kids they are, a wandering stranger shows up to generally be creepy and relate to them the tale of a group of Nazi zombies that might be on the prowl.  So, the feeling is not far removed from an episode of Scooby Doo…except that fucking dog is nowhere to be seen.  Of course, the stranger’s right, but what do The Dead Reich want?  How are they still running around up there?  Most importantly, how are we supposed to ignore the telegraphing of one’s character supposed faintness near blood and think that he’s not supposed to be up to the most bloody shit later in the movie?

And, let’s get two things out of the way up front here.  There’s two scenes, if you do any beforehand research on this film, that most people talk about being completely disgusting.  They’re right.  What they’re not saying is that both of these scenes have nothing to do with blood, but with boyfriend insensitivity and a woman who would appear to be turned on by shit.  And, no, no matter what you might think…I’m not making any of that up.

There’s a lot of absurdity here.  People will stop in the midst of fighting zombies to wonder if they’d ever recruit a jew, there’s a funny treeing scene, and there’s a decent amount of scene lifting from Sam Raimi here.  You’ve seen it before…most likely in Shaun of the Dead.  There’s a difference in Dead Snow, though, and that’s that the weird jump cut scenes are done very quickly.  Almost so quickly that you might not know what you were looking at if you weren’t familiar with the Evil Dead trilogy’s use of the same thing.  And, for me, there was one completely surreal moment in the film where one guy does an Indiana Jones impression in english.  Threw me for a loop for a second, that did.

So, with The Holiday (and, that’s how I see Halloween…The Holiday) coming up, take a chance on this subtitled gem.  It’s gross, it’s funny, it’s derivative (but in a good way), and most of all…there’s fucking Nazi zombies in it!

That should be all I have to say!

Tags: Horror, Review

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.