DEAD SNOW (2009) and DEAD SNOW 2: RED VS. DEAD (2014). DIRECTED BY TOMMY WIRKOLA. WRITTEN BY TOMMY WIRKOLA, STIG FRODE HENRIKSEN AND VEGAR HOEL.
STARRING VEGAR HOEL, STIG FRODE HENRIKSEN, CHARLOTTE FROGNER AND ØRJAN GAMST.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
‘Help! Emergency Services? We’re being attacked by Germans from World War Two…!’
‘Well, lick my soft little man-pussy…!’
The sequel you did NAZI coming…!
Ein, Zwei… Die…!
I liked these two comedy horror films, although I didn’t love them, and of the two, I preferred the original film to the much bigger budget, cast-of-thousands sequel. The first one has quite an EVIL DEAD vibe to it.
It sees a bunch of Norwegian medical students taking their Easter vacation in a log cabin, owned by one of them, in the Norwegian mountains. They’re happy enough to party the night away, until a mysterious stranger arrives without explanation and proceeds to harsh their buzz by telling them the history of the Nazi occupation of Norway in World War Two.
He heavily implies that the area is haunted by National Socialist zombies, which blows the kids’ minds. But when the vacationing students find a box of genuine Nazi gold under the floorboards in one of the bedrooms, a long-dormant curse is awakened and bam! The hills are suddenly alive with the sound of music, if by music you mean the delightfully discordant cacophony of Nazi zombies groaning.
There’s quite an eerie feeling to DEAD SNOW, and plenty of spooky moments in which you could almost forget the film is meant to be a comedy. The first appearance of Standartenfuhrer Herzog, the leader of the Nazi zombies whose job it was to police the occupation of the area in WW2, is chillingly memorable.
Anyway, the sole survivor of the Nazi zombie massacre in Film One, one Martin Hykkerud, is blamed in Film Two for the murder of his friends, and he’s also still being pursued by Herzog and the Nazi zombies.
The zombies have a new agenda now. Now that they have their precious gold back, they are free to carry out a heretofore unfulfilled order of Adolf Hitler’s: to annihilate the town of Talvik. Can Martin put a stop to this perfidy single-handed? Well, not exactly single-handed. He’ll need help from the following:
A. A trio of ‘professional’ zombie hunters in the form of three geeks, one male and two female, from the good old US of A, on their first ever zombie hunting outing;
B. The hilariously emo clerk of the World War Two Museum, and finally;
C. The hordes of long-dead Russian POWs killed in the war by Herzog and now lying mouldering in the local graveyard. By the way, Martin can raise the dead now, which, I think you’ll agree, is a rather nifty skill. It’s probably his main weapon in his fight to the death against the evil Herzog and his men.
The Norwegian cops, woefully inept and pitifully cowardly, raise a lot of laughs while Martin is busy raising the dead. And doesn’t the Norwegian language, when coming from the mouth of the head cop, sound like so many farmyard chickens furiously clucking…?
I’ll probably be ‘cancelled’ for saying that, but it’s the kind of language that makes you want to throw chickens and an assortment of vegetables up in the air and do impersonations of the Swedish chef from the Muppet Show…!
Check out the Nazi field hospital, in which casualties are stuffed with straw like the Scarecrow in THE WIZARD OF OZ before being immediately shunted back into battle, and the final scenes in which the film’s Heathcliff goes looking to be re-united with the film’s Cathy… with a shovel…!
So, there you go, anyway. Two fun films, excellent- if disgusting and vomity- special effects, and a believable plot, if anything with zombies in it can ever be deemed believable, lol. Oh, and there’s a ridiculous amount of disembowelling in both films, with miles and miles and miles of yucky intestines on show, and a big zombie free-for-all at the end. Go for it, if you’re so inclined, and happy viewing!
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books.
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