The Horror Show
Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead
by Tommy Wirkola
Dead Snow has been characterized as the best Nazi zombie movie ever made; a daring but yet honest statement, firstly because the number of such films is rather limited, and secondly it’s probably the only one that uses humor so successfully.
Vegar Hoel and Stig Frode Henriksen deliver a crowd-pleasing slasher and consequently a sequel to the Dead Snow franchise, which clearly won the audience over better than the first. Infused with goofy scenes and dark humor, Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead forms an entertaining horror spoof about Nazi zombies going on a slaughter spree in the countryside of Northern Europe.
The audience was introduced to Herzog, a viciously vengeful zombie, and his squad of warrior zombies in 2009 with the first part of Dead Snow. It was when Vegar Hoel and Stig Frode Henriksen wrote the first chapters of the story and left a group of friends at the mercy of evil Nazi zombies, who remained forever buried in the grounds they had once invaded.
The sole survivor of the gut-munching massacre was Martin, a courageous fellow who sawed off his own arm after being bitten by Herzog. Even though he managed to avoid the infection and escape the attack, fate had more troubles in store for him.
The sequel finds him lying in a hospital bed, burdened by the blame for his friends’ murder. To make things even worse, the doctors have reattached his limb, but the only problem is that they accidentally used Herzog’s arm, which was cut off during the attack.
Now, Martin is listed as a grim murdered by the authorities and is clearly put in a much worse position, when the arm starts to act voluntarily and adds more gruesome murders to his already heavy criminal record.
Three silly Americans, who are the only members of the well-known Zombie Squad, fly to Norway in support of Martin’s task to stop the Nazis’ evil plan. Their characters will add up to the randomness of Dead Snow 2 and will be the source for more ridiculousness and goofy scenes.
Let’s talk about the atmosphere for a bit. The setting is really successful for such a story. The snowy scenery of the Norwegian landscape is menacing enough and makes the zombie outbreak a more international matter. The director, Tommy Wirkola, exhausted all the clichés in the first part, where the main characters are massacred in the vicinity of a secluded wooden cabin leaving one mutilated survivor behind, whereas the second part goes beyond the clichéd isolation and has the zombies reach residential areas.
Tommy Wirkola directed the first flick, as well as the sequel, and it’s no wonder he moves in familiar territory. Ultimate gore, black humor, and stomach-cringing scenes are standard techniques, and frankly they deliver a quite entertaining outcome. The writers, who also star in the movie, didn’t quite strive towards making a slasher masterpiece, but they did manage to breathe new life into zombie invasion horror.
Maria Kriva, HMS
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