The zombie scene has largely been stale since Zack Snyder’s 2004 “re-make” of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. There was, of course, Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead and a nice effort sequel to Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, but there have been too many lackluster titles to count. Even Romero’s last two movies – Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead – failed to impress, though were obviously greeted with high expectations.
But people love zombie movies. It’s just a fact. It’s why horror shelves are full of them and a direct-to-video zombie title comes out nearly every month. The zombie movie has become a genre unto itself, with its own rules and cinematic conventions.
So how does Sweden – which produced last year’s phenomenal “vampire” film Let The Right One In – respond to this genre? Simple: by making quite possibly the most entertaining zombie movie I have ever seen:
Tommy Wirkola’s Dead Snow revolves around a group of med school students visiting a friend’s cabin for a weekend vacation. Little do they know, however, the remote cabin is smack dab in the middle of zombie territory. Well, not just zombie territory. Nazi zombie territory. And when the kids come across their stashed gold, all hell breaks loose.
The movie pays obvious homage to a lot of other movies that have succeeded doing the exact same things: taking a genre, explicitly stating its rules then dumping all over them – in practice and in good taste. The cabin bits play as a nod to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead, the “battle” bits channel Shaun of the Dead and some of the gore gags border on Robert Rodriguez’ Planet Terror grindhouse territory. Thankfully, it all works, and it works well. We don’t pretend that there’s a huge plotline here, so the movie doesn’t waste much time giving some haphazard excuse for the Nazi zombies to rise up and start feasting on intentions. Similarly, we don’t have to wait long for the humans to realize what’s up and arm themselves with every assortment of limb-chopping weapon.
This all plays out very much like a Nazi zombie game of Call of Duty 4, in that there really never seems to be a limit to the zombie hordes and the humans always seem outnumbered. But while COD4 focuses on the methodical, semiautomatic disposal of zombies, Dead Snow just lets loose with the bloodbaths. Outside of Japanese horror territory (read: sex parts), I can’t think of a limb or organ that wasn’t removed at some point in this movie. Sometimes that can be overplayed for the hell of it, but Wirkola knows his audience and knows what to show and when to show it. He’ll flip a genre convention on its head, then the next go-around, lead you believe he’s doing the same thing…and just never really do it. It’s great to see a director so knowledgeable of the type of person watching his film, and it pays off with some hilarious anti-climactic moments and ridiculous deaths. The only movie I’ve seen handle this better was the NC-17 Feast, which might be the king of all convention-shattering titles.
(I’d be kind of surprised if Dead Snow is released in the United States and doesn’t receive an NC-17 rating or editing for an R-rated cut. Not advocating it, just realistic about how the MPAA will likely approach it.)
In the end, you get a quick-moving 1 hr 15 minute movie that runs along at just the perfect pace. It doesn’t drag, which is a problem in similar titles (namely Edgar Wright’s works, which are all brilliant but perhaps 15 minutes too long.) There’s plenty of laughs, jump scares and dismemberment. Just the perfect mixture, and consequentially, a terrifically entertaining zombie movie that honors the genre while playing with some of its conventions.
Filed under: Movie Review, Movies, Trailer, Video
