Horror Movie Odyssey: Day 7 - Dead Snow

People often argue that zombies are scary because they are just friends and neighbors who have been forced back from the dead. Yesterday you were waiving to them in the driveway, and today you are braining them with a wrench because they tried to tear some flesh from your arm. There is no animus involved on their part, they simply need to eat you because they have had their operating instructions reset. Zombies, when done right, manage to conjure a potent mix of fear and pity, and they frankly become far less affecting when they were murderous assholes before they died.

Sometimes Less is Less

The story of Dead Snow goes something like this: A group of med school kids head up to a cabin in the mountains for Easter and are attacked by Nazi Zombies. That is it. That is the whole setup. That they don't work the zombie Easter angle into any resurrection jokes is a total missed opportunity. By not spending a bunch of time on the premise, the filmmakers are able to concentrate on accomplishing two things: First, they want you to know that they really really like Sam Raimi. Characters talk about Sam Raimi movies and wear shirts from those movies even before the movie morphs into a full on knockoff of his work. Second, they want to write their own nerd personas into the film. I don’t think it is a coincidence that the slightly chubby cinephile is the only guy on the trip to get a little action (from the hot chick no less). This is the equivalent of me writing a story where the socially retarded English major has to save the world.

This is My Boomstick

There is no denying that Dead Snow’s mix of red viscera and pristine snow is undeniably striking. The only visual flaw is the zombie makeup which makes all of the Nazis look like they just escaped from a burn ward. The real problem with Dead Snow is that the ideas they start with aren’t all that great. They try to go all Evil Dead but run out of gags before the halfway point. There are seriously are more intestine gags in this film than you can count on a single hand. When fake Ash starts wielding a chainsaw and then loses his arm, it becomes abundantly clear that these guys are on autopilot.