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Review by
Rod Barnett
Film:7
BD:10
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| 'Homage cinema'
can be a very tricky thing. If you lean too far to one side you
appear to be merely aping what you idolize with nothing new to
contribute to the conversation. If you lean too far to the other
side you can be seen as pretentious in your aspirations and alienate
the audience you hope to entertain. To walk that razor thin edge
and make a film that both acknowledges its influences and marks
its own ground, neither insulting its intended audience nor displeasing
it, is incredibly difficult but every year more than a few filmmakers
give it a try. That it is a nearly impossible task doesn't seem
to stop them and I take that as a positive for the future. The
perceived success or failure of any single movie affecting homage
can often divide fans in sharp ways between those angry that such
an attempt was made at all and more open minded fans willing to
give the new effort a chance. Being someone willing to give almost
anyone a chance I tend to err on the side of letting each movie
have its day in court — or, in reality, the arena. My criteria
for deciding if my thumb points up or down are simple. If you
kept me from rolling my eyes you succeeded. This means you must
follow the chosen form well enough to make your intentions clear;
add enough original elements to give the tale some freshness;
keep the dialog above the level of inane playground taunts and
show some energy. I'll forgive a lot if you can keep the energy
level high. I can't forgive constant stupidity but we aren't talking
about Michael Bay here — we're talking about
Dead Snow. |
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Dead
Snow is a horror film fan's love letter to the Evil
Dead movies and Peter Jackson's brilliant Braindead
with a loving nod to the wintery setting of Carpenter's
The Thing remake thrown in for the hell of it. That
these film fans are from Norway is the odd part and that point
of origin is probably the reason this over-the-top zombie opus
managed to get a major release in the U.S. Not that I'm complaining.
If every American-made horror film had this much imagination and
energy — well, there would a lot fewer remakes wasting everyone's
time clogging the multiplex screens. Dead
Snow isn't perfect but its blood-squirting heart is in
the right place and unlike your average attempt at homage it doesn't
insult the viewer. It gives them just what they want. |
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The movie begins with
a brief pre-credit sequence in which a woman is chased through
the moonlit snowy mountains by attackers who seem to kill and
eat her. We can see no details of the vicious killers except for
a glimpse of one's scarred, snarling face. Then the film proper
begins by introducing us to our group of victims — er, characters
as they drive into the snow-covered mountains for an Easter vacation
at a friend's cabin — apparently the same person we saw turned
into a midnight snack just moments ago. They represent a cross
section of... Okay, actually they're your standard group of asshole
college-aged twentysomething stereotypes typical of the average
slasher film. You know the kind of group I mean: the kind that
would generally never actually hang out on a holiday weekend together
except that it keeps the cast from being variations on the same
type of person. There are four guys and three (hot!) ladies with
the blonde overweight fellow being a horror movie fanatic. As
they tromp overland the last few miles to the secluded cabin he
name-checks several '80s horror films, joking about how many of
them start out with a group of people going to a distant area
with no cell phone service. (*ding ding*) This is your warning
that these people are not going to be the types who seem to have
never watched a horror flick before. They understand the clichés
of the genre and the filmmakers know you do too. Now both they
know and we know that their film's ability to makes us enjoy the
ride will hinge on how well they proceed from here. |
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One member of the group
goes ahead on a snowmobile to get the rustic cabin ready as the
rest walk up. After all gather they spend a few hours playing
in the snow and then, as night falls, it's a game of Twister and
some beer drinking. This relaxing evening is interrupted by a
camping old man who comes in for coffee and relates the area's
strange history. It seems that in World War II the nearby town
was used as a base for German soldiers maintaining a clear passage
for supplies. While most such garrisons worked to get along with
the natives, SS Commandant Herzog (movie geeks smile) was not
so inclined. Daily atrocities were inflicted on the people and
when the war was winding down Herzog ordered his men to take everything
of value from the town as they left. But the population rose up,
fought back against the Nazi bastards using whatever weapons they
could lay hand to. After killing a few of the soldiers the rest
escaped into the mountains and supposedly froze to death. The
friends laugh off the man's tall tale but later that night we
see him attacked in his tent by a knife-wielding maniac. The next
morning Sara's boyfriend Vegard decides something must have gone
wrong with her overland trip to the cabin and sets out on the
snowmobile to find her. That day the young folks discover a wooden
box of valuables hidden under the cabin's floor. Dating from the
early 1940s, the jewelry and gold coins sure look like the stuff
the townsfolk had stolen from them, huh? Meanwhile Vegard finds
the dead man in his tent, panics, and then falls into an ice cave
that appears to be the zombie's hang out. That night the folks
in the cabin are attacked full-out by the creatures, which are
clearly the undead German soldiers come back to reclaim their
ill-gotten wealth. And eat people. That's right, we have the rarest
of bipedal undead: Nazi zombies! |
Quickly the film turns
into a cross between the siege element of Night
of the Living Dead and the manic/spastic violence of
Evil
Dead 2 as the remaining people try desperately to survive
and escape the monsters. The violence is over the top and at
times cartoonish but it also is gruesome enough to cause the
occasional cringe. There is a little too much CGI blood splatter
added to the very effective practical effects for my taste but
for me any CGI blood is too much. And the film gets bonus
points for knowing that, if the plan is to go over the top,
half measures are not the way to do it. Hacking, slashing
and badass chainsaw violence paints the snow with red stuff
and copious body parts fly as the gory madness escalates into
a crescendo... nay, an orgy of splattery goodness that
makes this zombie film fan's heart sing. Oh, mighty Norway —
you are where the gorehounds have gone to procreate! No one
else seems to have any love for the old-time intestine pull.
No one but you. And you even made one of the intestine pulls
in this film into a humorous bit involving dangling over a cliff.
I want to marry you. Whew! Let me cool down here... Truth be
told, Dead Snow isn't perfect.
It's a little too willing to go for the jump scare and that
gets old. The film leans too hard on musical stings to amp up
the scares and past a certain point the reality of the situation
(as it is) slips away from the filmmakers and the silliness
takes over. But there is lots of energy here and a definite
love of the genre, even as they poke fun at some of the clichés
most hardened fans still enjoy. It isn't for everyone but you
probably knew that when you heard that it was a zombie comedy.
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| I've
been lucky enough to get my hands on the Region A Blu-ray release
of the film and it's a fantastic way to see it. Bright and sharp
in hi-def, the film's wintery setting is beautiful, the gore is
stunning and the overall picture quality is simply brilliant.
It looks just as good as it can on home video and at 1080p that
is saying something. The film is presented widescreen and anamorphic
(of course), with three different soundtrack options: the original
Norwegian in 5.1 Dolby or 2.0, and the English dub in 2.0 with
subtitles offered in English and Spanish. (The English dub is
serviceable but I prefer the subtitles which feel a little more
true to the spirit of the thing.) |
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A
number of extras are included that add up to hours of information
on the movie. Behind Dead Snow is about 18 minutes of behind-the-scenes
video footage that is subtitled but demonstrates that a number
of the cast and crew speak quite good English anyway. There is
also a 6-minute look at the creation of the practical special
effects used to dismember the cast. Two longer-form 'making of'
pieces are included called Madness in the North! and Madness
in the West!. North is 48 minutes long and goes through
the entire 40-day location shoot as the production faces everything
from weather delays, overtime disagreements, accidents and are
forced to change the title of the film from their preferred "Red
Snow" to something else. West is an amusing 18-minute
look at the director and cast's trip to American to premiere the
film at Sundance in 2009. Loose and funny, this piece showed both
the thrill of young Europeans getting to see Hollywood and the
boredom of flight delays and getting left out of festival events.
A piece called VFX shows about three minutes of composite
shots demonstrating how CGI was used to enhance the violence and
some unexpectedly effective scenes I was unaware were CGI.
Then there is a one minute bit showing the unfortunately unusable
shots filmed when the cabin was burned for the end of the film.
The Sounds of Dead Snow is a 5-minute short letting us
inside the mixing studio with the director and his sound designer
as they figure out how the zombies should sound (and get on each
others' nerves). Filling out the disc are the teaser, final theatrical
trailers and some fun outtakes. As I said: hours of extras! Whew!
5/07/10 |
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