Dead Snow (2009) Horror Movie Review

by Will
(UK)

***Reader Submitted Review***

Dead Snow is Norwegian Nazi Zombie Awesomeness that doesn't get the recognition it deserves!

Release: June 19, 2009
Directed by: Tommy Wirkola
Written by: Tommy Wirkola and Stig Frode Henriksen

Starring:
Charlotte Frogner as Hanna
Ørjan Gamst as Herzog
Stig Frode Henriksen as Roy
Vegar Hoel as Martin
Jeppe Laursen as Erlend
Evy Kasseth Røsten as Liv
Jenny Skavlan as Chris
Bjørn Sundquist as The Wanderer

The story of Dead Snow is the classic of a group of friends going to a cabin in the woods (snow covered mountain in this case) where they park their car at the bottom of the mountain and hike up. An isolated hut is never good news in horror.

One member of the group, an ex-army guy, uses his snowmobile to get to the cabin before the others so that he can warm the place up. So far so normal. But… one of the friends, who is off skiing for some reason, doesn’t turn up. We see why in the first scene which made me jump!

The crew doesn’t make much of the missing skier and settles down to beer and chatting. Oh, and by the way, one of them is a film buff who wears a Braindead T-shirt and annoys the rest of them by talking about films like Friday 13th all the time.

They are visited by a strange old guy who tells them about the Nazi occupation of the nearby town and that when they were driven out they took all the money and gold from the town and fled into these very mountains. Obviously they don't take him seriously and ignore him, much to their regret.

The film takes a while to get going, but once it does it's definitely worth the wait, with an epic battle between two guys weilding tools and a group of zombies (remember the Soviet symbol of hammer and scythe, keep that in mind), some decent gore (watch the overweight film buff's death, its pretty good) and a few nods to the classic rules of zombies.

Overall I was very impressed and would definitely recommend watching Dead Snow as a great modern zombie film which has humor yet doesn't try too hard.

I would rate it 4.5/5 as it does take a bit long to get going and most of the action is in a short period at the end of the film.