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A group of
friends go to a remote cabin in the
mountains for the weekend. What they don't know is
that this particular mountain is crawling with
flesh-eating Nazi zombies who are on the hunt for
their Nazi gold. Before they know it, they're
fighting for their lives, but will they come out
of this hellish weekend alive?
I have to say, heading into Dead Snow I wasn't
expecting much. It's been heavily marketed as an
action-comedy with zombies in it in Norway and that's
not a very accurate description. Instead, Dead Snow
is actually a pure horror flick with some comic
relieves in it - and a rather refreshing one at that.
It's more Dawn Of The Dead than Shaun Of The Dead.
The movie's strengths are also its weaknesses
unfortunately and even though it pokes fun on how
unoriginal it is, it still could've used a little
more brains (not literarily though because this was
surprisingly gory).
The story is very basic with a group of rather
anonymous teen characters (we've got the bimbo, the
hippie green-peace girl, the goofy guy, the dumb
blonde and so on) who go to the mountains for the
weekend. Before they know it a bunch of nazi zombies
are chewing on them and they have to fight with any
weapons they may find in order to stay alive. So
yeah, it's a teen zombie-flick only set in a winter
scenery. Having lived in Norway for a couple of
years, I appreciated the fact that it was a very
Norwegian-like movie. There was nothing Americanized
about it. The movie also had a very solid pace
through and through and the whole audience (which
unfortunately didn't consist of many people) seemed
to enjoy it. However, even if I hate to do this,
I have to because there are a couple of flaws that
I feel that I have to bring up.
First of all I didn't like the fact that the
characters were so anonymous, and for most of the
time rather obnoxious. I'm sure many teens can
relate to them as most of my Norwegian friends are
like this as well but they could've made them just
a little bit more likeable. Then there was the
script which obviously wasn't very thought-through.
For example, a guy goes looking for his missing
girlfriend and after finding a dead guy in a tent
he decides to explore a cave! Oh yeah, because
that's what you do when you know that there's a
killer on the loose and your girlfriend is missing,
you go cave-exploring. I also kind of felt that it
was borrowing a bit TOO much from Cold Prey. Let's
face it, it's a cheaper version of Cold Prey only
with zombies instead of a serial killer.
We also have some annoying and clichéd twists that
kind of dragged the movie down and you could tell
that the director was still learning how everything
works as some scenes look very cheap (especially
the ones inside the cabin) while others look
spectacular. For most of the time though, it looks
more low-budget than it really was. Great job on the
special effects though. But enough with the negativity
now, let's move onto some better stuff like the
special effects. Yes, the special effects are terrific
and like I said before, the movie is surprisingly
gory. Much gorier than Rovdyr (Manhunt), and still
it received a lower rating for some reason.
I also thought that most of the jokes worked and
when the movie was over you came out with a smile
on your face because it is indeed a very entertaining
and enjoyable horror flick. It's obviously aimed at
a younger crowd rather than a more sophisticated
crowd but I really had expected it to be so much
worse than it turned out to be. I thought that it
would be so-bad-that-it's-good at best, but it
turns out that it's actually so good that it's good.
I'm sure that this will be a failure at the box-office
with the god-awful posters that it has and the
terrible marketing (I've seen almost nothing so far)
but I commend these guys for daring to make the first
ever Norwegian zombie horror flick and succeeding
with it. Good word of mouth should help it along
and it is indeed one of the best zombie flicks of
the year. I really hope that these guys get to make
a sequel as I think that they could improve a lot
upon the concept and come up with a more original
approach to it. Still, definitely worth checking out.
We get a head ripped to pieces, decapitations, a
hand chopped off, severed arms and legs and more.
It's a freaking bloodbath.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The classical
music sometimes felt a bit misplaced and I'm not
a big fan of Norwegian music in general.
While severely better than I had expected, Dead Snow
will still be forgotten rather quickly as there's
nothing very groundbreaking about it. It's a teen
zombie flick and a good one at that but it has a lot
of flaws and rookie mistakes. Zombie fans will love
this though so check it out if you're into zombie flicks.
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