tMF | The Movie-Fanatic

Starring: Charlotte Frogner, Ørjan Gamst, Stig Frode
Director: Tommy Wirkola
Release Date: June 19, 2009
Running Time: 90 min
MPAA Rating: R
Distributor: IFC Films

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For those fans of horror, Dead Snow is just unmissable.  Watch the trailer, you’ll see why.  In the last year, Scandinavia has sent over some great films: Let the Right One In, Reprise, and now a bitchin’ movie about Nazi-zombies in the mountains of Norway.  It’s ‘good campy fun!’

For eight medical students, Easter vacation begins innocently enough. They pack their cars full of ski equipment and enough beer to fuel their escape from everyday life to the snowy, isolated hills outside of Øksfjord, Norway. Once there, they receive a late-night visit from a shady hiker, who tells them a story about Nazi occupation of the area during World War II. After doing their fair share of raping and pillaging, the dreaded battalion faced a brutal and vengeful uprising by the citizens of the town.  The soldiers who managed to survive the onslaught, including their dreaded leader Colonel Herzog (Ørjan Gamst), were driven into the hills by the angry mob, where they supposedly froze to death, never to be seen again. But if the horror genre has taught us anything, it’s that the raucous behavior and promiscuity of the younger generation always have a way of  ringing evil spirits back to life.

Back in January, at the Sundance Film Festival, IFC quickly picked up the distribution rights to this gore-filled zombie romp. Who doesn’t love a good zombie flick? Dead Snow almost seems to be two different movies. The first half is a well paced horror movie that takes it’s time building suspense and developing its characters (even though that development is pretty shallow). Then it turns into an over the top comedy/horror, providing both laugh-out-loud, and gross-out moments. Most of the zombie action is made of up nods to better films that have come before it, including: The Descent, 28 Days Later, Shawn of the Dead, The Evil Dead movies, and Friday the 13th.  The actors didn’t seem to have a problem switching tones and moods, and if you can forgive the rolling heads, severed limbs, Dead Snow will prove itself a cult classic.  Director Tommy Wirkola (who previously made a successful Kill Bill spoof called Kill Buljo, the Norwegians love it), co-wrote the script with Stig Frode Henriksen (who also worked on Kill Buljo).

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