REVIEW: Dead Snow (2009, Tommy Wirkola)

I can't imagine a more potent idea for a balls-to-the-wall horror flick: unwise campers incur the wrath of gold-hungry zombie Nazis.  It makes me salivate, thinking of the possibilities.  Nods to other horror classics should play like icing on the bloody cake: a drop of Friday the 13th, a dollop of The Evil Dead.  Yes, this recipe should make for a rich, inviting horror treat.  And yet - of course there was a "yet" coming - Dead Snow ends up a marginal achievement.  Less satisfying than satiating, and barely that.  You will have your fill of in-jokes and intestines, but you will also have heroes who refuse to learn the lessons of the horror films they coyly name-check.

It's impossible for Dead Snow to fail completely, so fun is the central conceit, and so there are many striking compositions, uses of color, and gory dismemberments.  I especially love a shot that features the black-suited zombie leader overlooking a snowy mountain.  However, the film falls so completely into the narrative tricks and traps of its horror ancestors that it never successfully establishes an identity or personality of its own.  Think about that: a movie about snowbound Nazi zombies feels uninspired.  A paradox, and, yet - that "yet" again - there it is on the screen, listless and conventional.

Could you guess, for example, that the first person to die is a woman who might be classified as a slut?  I don't love the term.  It always seems reductive and misogynist.  But what else can I call a woman whose sexual appetite is so deep-seated that she copulates with a man in a decades-old outhouse...while he's still pushing?  Another example: could you guess that two people being chased decide to split up?  I've become so violently against this ancient cliche that its presence in Wolf Creek caused me to stop the film, slip it in its sleeve, and return it to Netflix.  Horror heroes should be at least as smart as the dumbest viewer, and even the dumbest viewers know how stupid splitting up is.

There's some willful ignorance, too: nobody makes the connection between Nazi zombies and a wooden box full of gold conveniently dated 1942.  And some logical questions: how can a woman who falls off a huge cliff not only survive, but trek back to the cabin in minutes?  These are not problems unique to this premise - horror films have been crutching on such idiocies for decades, and it's becoming less and less excusable.  They cast a shadow over Dead Snow, keeping it from becoming its own unique tale.  And yet, I can hear the response from the film's makers and supporters: hey, stupid, it's just a film about Nazi zombies.  What I don't understand is why we should hold our Nazi zombie films to such low standards.


RATING: C