Dead Snow

It seems, with Hollywood set on the sequels and remakes track, that the most interesting and original horror films are now coming from Europe.  The best film of this year, Let The Right One In, hailed from Sweden with other solid genre entries coming from France, Spain and Norway.  After reviewing the satisfying slasher movie Cold Prey (and its sequel) recently, I heard of another Norwegian horror film doing the festival circuit to high acclaim: Dead Snow.
 
A group of medical students head into the mountains for their Easter break hoping for some fun.  The tone is set straight away when one of them, Erlend, immediately asks how many films start with a group of kids going to a cabin without a phone signal, thinking of Friday the 13th, The Evil Dead and is surprised when another of the group out nerds him by throwing in April Fool's Day!  You know straight away that this is a film made by people who know and love horror and that most of the group will be killed in nasty ways.
 
 

 
The first thing they do is tie an innertube to the back of the snowmobile and get towed around the snowy field.  Waiting for Sara who has decided to ski there rather than drive most of the way, they drink, mess around and have sex but the mood changes when a grizzled stranger arrives and tells them the history of the area.  Apparently in the Second World War, a group of Nazis were stationed there and their behaviour was barbaric so the locals rose up, killed some and chased the rest into the mountains where they froze to death with their ill-gotten gains.  Of course this is only in the first 20 minutes so you know the Nazis are going to make an appearance and having already seen Sara being attacked and devoured by a uniformed figure, you know she's not going to turn up.
 
When the Nazis appear, under the leadership of Oberst Herzog, you, and the characters, quickly realise that they've survived the cold as they are zombies so we're into Evil Dead territory with plucky students using whatever weaponry they can find to defeat the evil horde.  Dead Snow is a knowing film that assumes a degree of film knowledge in its audience so they can appreciate the gags and references and the more you know, the more you'll enjoy yourself. 
 
 
 
It is clearly a film with three acts all clearly defined:  the first establishes characters, backstory and location; the second introduces the Nazis and places the characters under threat and the third act turns up the gore as the two groups go head to head.  Though not strictly speaking a horror/comedy along the lines of Shaun of the Dead, Dead Snow has some great lines and slapstick humour with one prime example being when they get a phone signal and Martin reaches the emergency services telling the operator that they are being attacked by 'what appear to be Germans from the Second World War' and curses vehemently when she hangs up.
 
This succeeds as both a comedy and a horror with some genuine laugh-out-loud moments that would do Sam Raimi proud and some well orchestrated jumps and enough ludicrous bloodletting to keep gorehounds happy.  I can understand why Dead Snow was such a hit on the festival circuit and has come to the home cinema market bringing such high expectations.  Thankfully it lived up to the billing and I thoroughly enjoyed it and can see myself re-watching it quite regularly.

The Disc

 
Extra Features
The main extra is Ein! Zwei! Die! - The Making of Dead Snow which runs at just under 50 minutes and shows what a struggle it was to make the movie with the seasons changing every quarter of an hour and money running out.  The budget wasn't huge to begin with but with inclement weather pushing the overtime, there was a great deal of goodwill and negotiation needed to finish on time.  The piece is a good watch though you do have to concentrate as it flicks between Norwegian with English subtitles and spoken English as the multinational crew are addressed in the de facto universal language.
 
After this there are three shorter featurettes, the first of which is a brief look at the CGI, showing which scenes were enhanced and how with the other being a look at the make-up and then to the tortuous trip to Sundance in which the airline KLM doesn't come out very well.
 
Rounding off the package is a selection of trailers from the original theatrical to the UK promo.
 
 
 
The Picture
A very good high definition transfer from a very well shot film.  Tommy Wirkola certainly knows how to frame and compose his film and the choice to up sticks and relocate to the wilderness was a wise choice as the wide shots look terrific and give the actors a chance to bond which shows.  The gore and action sequences come across very well with some excellent special effects make-up which occasionally allows for over the top violence with comedic effect.
 
A couple of quick scenes were a little too dark to make out the detail properly and there is the obvious downside of trying to get the right light levels when filming in bright sunshine in a snowy landscape.
 
The Sound
There are both DTS-HD Master Audio and PCM Stereo soundtracks which are both very good though the surround is more effective in the louder combat scenes when the extra channels are used.  Dead Snow is nicely scored and uses Grieg's In The Hall of the Mountain King during the opening zombie attack to great effect; thereafter most of the source music is Scandinavian heavy metal which works very well - the main confrontation has a country feel to the music, enhancing the comedy.
 
The subtitles are clear and I didn't notice any spelling or grammatical errors though I can't attest to the veracity of the translation.
 
 
 
Final Thoughts
Dead Snow is not the most accomplished film you will ever see but it knows what it is and who the target audience are likely to be.  As one of them, I had a great time and anticipate watching it again sooner rather than later.  If you are a fan of films like The Evil Dead (or Evil Dead II) then you'll likely have a great time watching this and it's probably better if you watch it with people with a similar inclination for daft and gory films.