Dead Snow (Død Snø)

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Rating 2¾


Directed by Tommy Wirkola

Written by Tommy Wirkola and Stig Frode Henriksen

Starring Vegar Hoel (Martin), Stig Frode Henriksen (Roy), Charlotte Frogner (Hanna), Lasse Valdal (Vegard), Evy Kasseth Røsten (Liv), Jeppe Laursen (Erlend), Jenny Skavlan (Chris), Ane Dahl Torp (Sarah), Bjørn Sundquist (The Wanderer) and Ørjan Gamst (Herzog)


A group of friends travel up to an isolated cabin high up in the Artic Circle in Norway for their Easter vacation. Once there, they are menaced by zombies, that also happen to be members of the notorious Einsatzgruppen, Second World War Nazi SS paramilitary soldiers.

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‘Dead Snow’ is a 2009 Norwegian comedy-horror film, but its humour is not like the warm-hearted comedy of Simon Pegg’s much-loved 2004 zombie film ‘Shaun of the Dead’. Although the film was not particularly well-received in Norway, it has generated more favourable reviews elsewhere and has a 66% fresh rating from 61 reviews collected at Rotten Tomatoes.

I am not really a fan of zombie movies, generally speaking, and I have not even seen all of the films of George A Romero, but I was expecting more of ‘Dead Snow’. The prospect of Nazi “stormtrooper” zombies offers more than it finally delivers, although I did enjoy the film, which has some inventive moments and plays nicely on the intentionally clichéd premise. It piles on the bloody gore with much more tongue-in-cheek humour than most American horror films seem to manage.

‘Dead Snow’ has a worldwide box office gross a little over $1.8 million.

Review posted 2 November 2009


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