Dead Snow – DVD Review

The Film:

The horror genre has always developed oddball sub-genres, but perhaps none odder than the Nazi-zombie sub-genre. It seems like a fitting tribute to cinema’s (and man’s) most vile enemy, turning a Nazi into the walking dead, and before you start thinking about it’s exploitative reasoning’s, let me tell you this: if the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi, then what’s not to love about getting a second chance to kill a Nazi? Dead Snow comes hot off the heels of its much talked about Sundance appearance, and like every non-Hollywood horror film, the flock of praise descended down on it, in hopes of a studio Hollywood horror killer. Now, I’m very certain that wasn’t director Tommy Wirkola’s intentions. I’m sure he just wanted to do a good zombie film. The praise is unjust, as the film borrows and gladly wears its Sam Raimi influences. Evil Dead it ain’t, nor should it be, but it tries.

What Dead Snow should have been was a kick ass little zombie film with Nazis, but Wirkola disparately infuses comedy, bland characters, with little story. Not that we demand much from a Nazi zombie movie, but Wirkola does the impossible by allowing us to want the Nazi zombies to win, and kill and eat our protagonists. The characters are pretty damn unlikable, following the stock cliches of a group of teenagers in the middle of nowhere. Nearly 20 minutes of the film’s running time is devoted to these idiots. By the time they turn zombie-killers ala Bruce Campbell, I was waiting for the head SS commander to kill them. Bad move, although the film’s goal is fun.

I think for most people, the zombie action will be the tasty frosting on Wirkola’s cake. The gore level is sort of high, with one neat scene of a character clinging to dear life by hanging over a snowy edge by holding onto an impaled zombie’s intestines. There’s also a great gore gag with two zombies splitting a characters head open like a coconut. These scenes are fun, and for those that are only into that, it’s the frosting that will slightly win them over the bland cake mix Wirkola used.

The film is all action, sans an incredibly stupid exposition by a random character setting it up for why the Nazi zombies exist. There was an awesome idea in here, it’s just Dead Snow wraps it up with its Evil Dead outline. I’m cool in our day and age, with filmmakers being influenced by their idols, everyone is. But take what you liked and morph it into something new, and don’t carbon copy it. I’m not interested in your take of Evil Dead because Raimi did it first and better. You’ll catch some Peter Jackson references too. Fine. If you don’t mind that, Dead Snow should be a decent watch. You get some cool gory kills, a few chuckles, and Nazi zombies. The film could have been more. The potential was there. Nazi zombies, the snowy landscape, gore, almost undone by it’s willingness to copy the horror/comedy of Evil Dead or Dead Alive, that doesn’t really work. Zombies will be forever, and Nazi zombies will be around too. For my money, Shockwaves is still the best Nazi zombie movie.

The DVD:

Audio/Video: MPI Home Video delivers a solid looking film. The white snow in contrast to the blood reds and blacks are all thick and look really good on DVD. But the issue is in the audio; the mix is too loud. The effects, cues, and rock songs are all overly loud in the mix, which isn’t the intent, but a sad error that is really irksome.

A second disc houses all of the extras.

Madness in the North!: This is a pretty thorough 45 minute making-of, that even though I was lukewarm on the film, I really enjoyed it. Gotta respect the DYI horror films.

Madness in the West!: This short piece is the Sundance panel recorded.

Behind Dead Snow: Features more interviews, but feels redundant after that long making-of.

Special Effects of Dead Snow, VFX, Outtakes, Burning the Cabin, Trailers, and The Sounds of Dead Snow are all short and sweet featurettes that are self-explanatory.

Conclusion: Over-hyped and not as great as the Sundance rave reviews suggested, but it’s worth a quick look. The DVD is really good though.

The Film: Rating:

The DVD: Rating: