WINTER HORROR # 1 - DEAD SNOW (2009)

DIRECTED by Tommy Wirkola

SCREENPLAY by Tommy Wirkola & Stig Frode Henriksen

STARRING  - Vegard Hoel as Martin Hykkerud, Stig Frode Henriksen as Roy Toivonen, Charlotte Frogner as Hana Delon,  Lasse Valdal as Vegard Rosten,  Evy Kasseth Rosten as Liv Beck,  Jeppe Laursen as Erlend Johnsen,  Jenny Skavlan as Chris Frogner,  Ane Dahl Torp as Sara Henriksen,  Bjorn Sundquist as The Wanderer,  Orjan Gamst as Standartenfuhrer Herzog.

PLOT - A group of students spend thier Easter holidays in a cabin in the snowy mountains. Thier partying is interrupted by a strange wanderering hiker who warns them that there is evil lurking in the mountains and tells them a tale about a lost Nazi platoon who terrorised the area in the Second World War.

The hiker leaves the unnerved students and is later killed by an unseen assailant. The students find a box hidden in the basement of the cabin which contains what seems to be a cache of Nazi gold.

Suddenly the students come under attack - the lost Nazi platoon has come back from the dead as hideous zombies and now they want thier gold back...

DIALOUGE  - Martin - " Hello 9-1-1 ?  We've been attacked by what look like German zombies from the Second World War. And we set our cabin on fire by accident...THE BITCH HUNG UP ON ME !!!"

PERFORMANCES  - Dead Snow is a black comedy that is played completely straight by its cast. This lends a sense of drama to the story even when things start getting a bit silly (which they do...frequently).

The cast all follow the traditional roles seen in this type of film but there are a few twists along the way to keep the audience on thier toes which makes the film seem fresher than it otherwise would.

Vegar Hoel as Martin slowly emerges as the film's lead. At first he seems to be a bit more in the background than some other characters. He's quieter, more reserved, less of a party animal than some of his friends. He's also a medical student training to be a doctor who faints at the sight of blood (quite how that career would have worked on a day to day basis with such an aversion I have no idea). Needless to say Martin has to overcome his phobia pretty damn quick once the zombies turn up and he takes up arms with that trusty old standby - a chainsaw.

Martin has quite a few similarities with the character of Ash Williams from the Evil Dead series. Like Ash he becomes a slightly incompetent zombie killer, like Ash he gets a lot of funny lines and like Ash he ends up having to chainsaw his own arm off when he gets bitten by a zombie. 

Martin develops a bit of a double act with Roy (Stig Frode Henriksen) as they slice and dice zombies together in the film's later scenes and there's quite a lot of nice back and forth interplay between the two characters which works very well. Roy ends up getting killed but Frode Henriksen returns as a different character in the sequal and similarly teams up again with Martin to become the "new" sidekick. The two actors work well together so why not ?

The other main character is Martin's girlfriend Hana played by Charlotte Frogner. Like Martin, Hana's character has an inbuilt limitation that she has to overcome to survive. In Hana's case this is a fear of tight enclosed spaces. As soon as you find this out about her you just know that she's going to find herself trapped somewhere as the movie progresses. You'd be right - at one point Hana gets caught in an avalanche and has to stop herself from going into complete panic mode as she digs herself out. Hana proves to be quite resourceful and is DEFINITELY a lot more competent than Martin. This doesn't work out though as Martin accidentally kills her when he hits her with a pick axe intended for a zombie...oops...told you he was incompetent.

The other characters all fall into traditional tropes with some of those aforementioned "twists" built into them. Lasse Valdal as Vegard outwardly looks like he's going to be the film's main hero at first. He ticks all the "leading man" boxes - he's good looking, athletic, his character is an ex-soldier so he can look after himself, he even comes equipped with his own snow bike so he can traverse the snowy wilderness searching for his missing girlfriend Sara (who gets killed by the zombies in the film's opening scene). None of this does him any good in the long run though as he literally gets torn to shreds by the undead just before the film's final act.

Jeppe Laursen plays Erlend - the resident film "geek" who totally breaks the "rules" established for this type of character in this type of movie by actually getting to have sex with - arguably - the hottest girl in the group - Chris (Jenny Skavlan). Rounding out the students we get Liv (Evy Kasseth Rosten), she doesn't get to do much but as with Erlend she defys genre conventions by managing to take out a couple of zombies in her death scene by blowing them (and herself) up with a stick grenade. We also get Bjorn Sundquist as the strange hiker who drops by the cabin to unnerve the students with his tale of the lost Nazi horde. He's great - he's not in it for long but it's a pretty magnetic and tense performance that Sundquist gives. You can't take your eyes off this weird stranger as you just don't know what he's going to do next.

Finally there's Orjan Gamst as Standartenfuhrer Herzog. He's a great villain with bags of screen presence. Every inch the ruthless Nazi war criminal...just a bit smellier and more decomposed than we're used to seeing. Herzog deserves to become a horror icon. He's...wait for it...a truly Nazi piece of work.

SFX - Some great zombie makeup work and gore, gore and more gore.

SEX & VIOLENCE  - Erlen and Chris have sex in a freezing cold outdoor toilet - probably not the best place but hey - if you've got the urge you've got the urge right ?

As for violence...Well...there's just too much to actually list - so here are some edited highlights...

Martin gets bitten by a zombie causing him to saw his own arm off - Ash Williams style - only to then get bitten in the testicles by another zombie (yes, you DID read that right), it is undisclosed what happens to said testicles...

Roy gets disemboweled by a pesky tree branch. Hana dies from an accidental axe wound inflicted by Martin. Vegard literally gets torn limb from limb by angry undead Nazis...

Liv gets partially eaten and then blown up. Erlend gets torn in half - face first...

Chris is dragged off into the night to be killed offscreen. The mysterious hiker is torn to shreds in his own tent...

Zombie Nazis are sliced, diced, bashed and crashed in various completely O.T.T and inventive ways...

RATING -  Dead Snow is an all out balls to the wall action Nazi zombie killfest. If you like your horror fast paced and comic book styled with lashings of the red stuff and lots of smart and subversive humour then this is the film for you.

Its massively entertaining. Atmospheric in all the right places, beautifully shot, well acted and is an all round great horror comedy. 5 goose stepping ghouls out of 5. Definitely watch this in a double bill with it's 2014 sequal "Dead Snow 2 - Red vs Dead" (which is even wilder than this film) for the full experience. You'll be glad you did. In years to come this film will be ranked up there with the Evil Dead series by horror fans. Mark my words.

POSTER/DVD ART  -