A look back at Dead Snow (Dod sno).

Found this movie a little while back, downloaded it and loved it. If your into Evil Dead style violence and mayhem, there's plenty here to enjoy. Now, those who missed it are fortunate enough to pick it up on DvD and Blu-ray.



The premise of this movie is simple: A group of medical students are spending Easter Break by planning a ski trip in the desolate Scandinavian wilderness. Just like any good horror flick, the gang is greeted by a crazy local who stumbles into their cabin one night and explains the evils that haunt the area. And, of course they ignore the warnings until it's to late. Sure, it may appear this is one of those movies you've seen 1,000 before, but it gets better from there. The antagonists here are evil undead Nazi bastards. When you have a horror film, you want the scariest, most vile and gruesome villain possible - what could be more frightening than the zombified spawn of Hitler, possibly the most evil man on earth? An army of them, no doubt.

The first half of the film seems to be aiming to terrify you, wheres the Nazi zombies stay at a distance in the dark, but at about halfway point (when the sun is at it's highest, and the zombies come out) it's a pure gorefest. It's like your watching a video game on screen (the game Dead Rising comes to mind). The zombies, even wile out in sunlight, are among the best of them - the make up fx look menacing and stylish. And the gore, and there's plenty of it, is at it's finest.

Fans of classic splatter flicks such as The Evil Dead and Brain Dead will rejoice, because they don't skimp out on the red stuff here. Limbs are hacked off, zombies are disemboweled, and people are just torn to shreds. But the violence here is more along the lines of Sam Raimi rather than Lucio Fulci, and while it may be disturbing to some, it's more so humorous than anything. The fact that director Tom Wirkola has an eye for parody and paying homage is also very apparent in Dead Snow, as most of the movie seems to pay its respects to the Eighties slasher genre. However, it's Wirkola's ability to keep things moving with an approach that still feels fresh that keeps Dead Snow from feeling like just another retread of movies that have already been created.

Above all, Dead Snow is along the lines of films like Brain Dead and Evil Dead, where the gore factor is as fun as it is excessive, or if you just enjoy watching Nazi zombies getting splattered, then Dead Snow is definitely the flick for you.