Norway are not exactly known for their great contribution to horror, yet in the past couple of years thanks to ‘Cold Prey’ (‘Fritt vilt’) and Cold Prey 2 (‘Fritt vilt II’) it seems the Norwegians may have found their footing. Heck, they could even go on to eclipse some of their European counterparts such as France or Spain in the horror stakes one day.
Writer/director Tommy Wirkola brings us ‘Dead Snow’ (‘Død Snø’), due for DVD release at the end of this month here in the UK. A group of irritating medical students spend their Easter break in a cabin in the snow covered mountains near Øksfjord. Only to be disturbed by a mysterious hiker spouting a local dark legend of a group of Nazis led by Colonel Herzog who were occupying the area during World War II. The Nazis abused and tortured the locals until the inhabitants staged an uprising. The surviving Nazis, including the Colonel were chased into the mountains where it was assumed they had all froze to death.
For those who haven’t seen ‘Cold Prey’ could almost be forgiven for thinking this was the same movie in it’s opening 20 minutes. But the major difference with ‘Dead Snow’ is that the tongue is planted firmly in the cheek and seems to be trying it’s best to emulate zombie comedies of the past. Which unfortunately it doesn’t seem to get quite right. Amongst the barrage of zombie movie references, which are as subtle as being smacked in the face with an iron, there is also a heap of ingredients that lean this more towards a typical slasher recipe.
The opening scene is well executed and accompanied by the intelligent inclusion of the piece of music ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’, which fits perfectly into this and sets the mood and style for the whole movie. And if the forthcoming gore-factor wasn’t enough to get my stomach churning then a rather sickening scene where tubby funster geek Erland somehow gets a gratis pass f#cking from one of the cute females whilst taking a sh#t in the outhouse.
Thankfully once we get past the initial not-so-amusing dialogue and ‘night shot’ sequences, (which most appear to have been filmed during the day and then ‘darkened’ in post-production) the events move into more entertaining fields as ‘Dead Snow’ gets bloodier and funnier. In the final third it seems the movie, which I was nearly about to give up on, manages to turn itself around and begins delivering everything I was looking for.
Before sitting down to watch ‘Dead Snow’ it was hard to get the striking images from the various poster, one-sheets and DVD covers that had embedded themselves into my subconscious out of my head. The zombified and blood stained Nazis looked great on the snow caked backdrop and this is what I was expecting more of in the movie. And luckily we get it once the evil dead decide to begin attacking during the day. Especially with an amazing looking ‘stand-off’ scene between 3 of the lead male characters and the Nazi troops.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Getting past the fact that there doesn’t appear to be any solid ‘zombie-rules’ here it’s still great fun. I was all for marking this down with a 1 or 2 star rating but the movie gained strength and pace and become an all out gore-riot. The entire thing stepped up a gear and it’s a shame that the whole experience couldn’t have felt like that from beginning to end. My advice would be not to get too disheartened by the lack of laughs, scares and gore – just hang in their and it’ll start coming thick and fast.
