Touches You

Good concept, poorly executed.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I've never had the chance to see the original DEAD SNOW but I was lucky enough to stumble on its sequel, RED VS. DEAD, and jumped on it. I mean, Nazi zombies…why not? Zombie movies are a dime a dozen anymore and Nazis are popping up more and more as the go-to baddies in genre films (IRON SKY, great flick) but I'd heard good things about these movies and wanted to check it out. DEAD SNOW has gained cult popularity similar to DOG SOLDIERS (another one I want to see) so it's probably worth a watch. The second film, apparently, begins right where the original film left off. Martin (Vegar Hoel) has narrowly escaped with his life following the encounter with Nazi zombies that left his friends dead and cost him his right arm. The cursed Nazi gold hoard has been returned and there is hope the monsters will return to their resting place. No such luck. The zombies, under the command of the evil Herzog (Ørjan Gamst), are determined to complete their original mission from the war: an attack on the coastal Norwegian village of Talvik. With the zombies on the move and adding to their undead ranks every step of the way, Martin realizes he'll need help to stop them. But with local police believing him responsible for the murders of the first film, where can he turn? A chance encounter leads Martin into contact with the trio of amateur zombie hunters from the United States ready and eager for their chance to shine: the Zombie Squad.DEAD SNOW 2 is fun but it's got its issues. It's really good and moves along at a strong pace until about halfway through the movie. There's a good mix of dark humor and visceral violence. Despite the whole Nazi zombie and bloody dismemberments, this is definitely more a comedy than a horror film. The filmmakers know the whole premise is insane and their goal is to go wild and have fun. The violence is so over the top that it's practically cartoonish. There's a running gag playing off the fact that at the start of the film, due to bizarre circumstances, Herzog's arm has been grafted onto Martin and this arm has given him a shared power with the Nazi commander to reanimate the dead. There's one poor zombie that can't help but die over and over again as Martin continues to reanimate him as his own loyal zombie lapdog. Babies are exploded, little old ladies have their heads caved in…no one is safe. Director Tommy Wirkola is obviously trying to see how far he can take it and it's all done in good fun. The movie is a haven for gorehounds. The zombie attacks are awesome, which is why it was disappointing in the last act of the movie when it went from comedy/horror to a large-scale action scene for the final battle. The final battle goes on longer than necessary and ruins the momentum, stumbling at the film's finish line.The Zombie Squad brings some cheese to the movie. The trio is the usual over- excited zombie enthusiasts that operate out of their parents' attics/basements and have gleaned their "skills" from zombie movie marathons. The head of the Squad, Daniel (Martin Starr of HBO's "Silicon Valley"), sees this as a chance for their team to gain some notoriety. His two beautiful associates Monica and Blake (Jocelyn DeBoer and Ingrid Haas) are sort of comic relief, if an onslaught of Star Wars references is enough for a chuckle. Mostly, the Squad exists to provide exposition through Daniel's expertise. Outside of Martin and Daniel, the rest of the characters aren't overly developed. This becomes a problem when the movie detours away from Martin and Daniel's story to give us an action sequence with the girls and the unfortunate Glenn Kenneth (Stig Frode Henriksen). Glenn is a one-note joke; the audience is expected to laugh at the idea that he's apparently a closeted homosexual that won't own up to it. The joke doesn't fly as well as it might've a decade ago, unless Norway isn't as progressive and that sort of thing is still a gag over there. Glenn is the worst example of the lack of characterization in DEAD SNOW 2. Each person in the film (with the exception of Martin and Daniel) is just a personality quirk with a name. Unfortunately, any humor to be mined from that runs out pretty fast. DEAD SNOW 2 is at its best when zombies are eviscerating terrorized masses and, when it stops doing that, it falters.

Starting right at the end of the first Dead Snow, Martin does not even have time to recover, as he must gather an army to stop the undead Nazis from completing the mission they were on before they died.It's a movie that pokes fun at the zombie genre while adding to it at the same time. Parodying itself makes for a great safety net for adding your own spin to the genre, but they did not need it. The more extreme the movie seems to get the better. I loved how outrageous the movie gets.My personal favorite was Martian Star as the leader of a group of geeks who claim to be Zombie hunters, only this is the first set of Zombies they ever go up against. It had a Lost boys type thing going on.It's rare that I've seen a bad Zombie movie, but it's even rarer that you see one that takes the genre up a notch, and that's Red vs. Dead.

'DEAD SNOW 2: RED VS. DEAD': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five) Sequel to the 2009 Norwegian zombie horror-comedy flick; about a group of students attacked by Nazi zombies, in the Norwegian mountains. The sole survivor, of that film, is now trying to defend a Norwegian town; from annihilation, by the Nazi zombies. It was once again directed by Tommy Wirkola and written by Wirkola, Stig Frode Henriksen and Vegar Hoel. Hoel and Henriksen also once again star in the movie and this time they're joined by Martin Starr, Ingrid Haas, Jocelyn DeBoer, Hallvard Holmen, Kristoffer Joner, Amrita Acharia, Derek Mears and Orjan Garnst (reprising his role as Colonel Herzog). I loved the movie; it's so much fun! Picking up right where the first film left off; Martin (Hoel) is still on the run from the Nazi zombies, and he crashes his car in the mountains. He ends up in a hospital where a doctor replaces his amputated arm, that he sawed off in the first film (to stop a zombie infection), with the undead arm of Colonel Herzog (Garnst). He can't control the arm, at first, and it murders several people. He later learns that he has special zombie powers, thanks to his new zombie arm. He also learns that Herzog, and his army of undead Nazis, plan on destroying a town; as part of a 70-year-old assignment, given to them by Hitler. Martin finds help from a WWII museum employee, named Glenn (Henriksen), and three American siblings; calling themselves the 'Zombie Squad'. They're lead by a nerd named Daniel (Starr). The movie is full of excessive and extremely grotesque zombie violence; it's definitely not a film for everyone, but it's also full of really funny light-hearted humor. The action scenes are so much fun and the characters are all likable and mostly relatable (in an exaggerated way). The additions of Star and Holmen, to the cast, are brilliant and there's a classic zombie sidekick character (Joner) as well. Hoel is also, once again, outstanding in the lead and Wirkola's directing is perfect. It's sure to become a cult classic, like the original, and its also highly reminiscent of 'EVIL DEAD II'; which is a good thing (in my opinion).

Despite being a zombie fan, it took me a couple of viewings to appreciate the original 'Dead Snow.' But it grew on me (and now I own it on DVD). I was delighted when I heard a sequel was out and watched it straight away. I have to say I didn't like this one either at first, but, whereas the original took a couple of viewings to 'get,' I started to like its sequel at around the half hour mark.The original Dead Snow was a 'condensed little number.' It was about a group of friends who took a skiing holiday to a remote cabin (hardly original, eh?) where they interrupt a load of Nazi zombies. Naturally, blood and guts follow. So, instead of retreading the original, the film-makers choose to expand the whole story on a bigger picture. We're given more information on the Nazis zombies. Who'd have thought evil undead killers have such a rich and diverse back-story?! But they do! Plus we have a whole new cast of characters on hand to help out the lone survivor of the initial encounter.And the characters are fun. The police on the trail of the undead carnage is pretty inept and quite amusing. Our leftover hero is nicely psychotic and damaged after his previous ordeal, but what makes the film is how the writers have added all sorts of nice new aspects to what could just be another zombie movie. There are so many movies out there like this these days that anything that wants to stand out has to cover new ground. And I'm glad to say this one does. I won't list too many of its original nice touches, but my favourite aspect was how the hero's arm god severed and the hospital had to reattach it. Only they messed up and accidentally stitched on the main zombie's arm, hence unwittingly giving our hero a few new powers of his own.You will need to have a pretty dark sense of humour to watch this. There are so many politically incorrect moments that break conventions. A black sense of humour is a must here. Plus there's a fair bit of action towards the end. Off the top of my head I'd have to say that 'Dead Snow2' contains the longest ongoing climactic battle I've seen in a zombie film.You should be aware that the film is shot in both Norwegian and English, so you'll find you're reading the subtitles one minute, only to realise you're listening to English the next.The only criticisms I have would be that it does feel a little 'all over the place' at times. Sometimes there are so many ideas and characters that things get a little messy and you end up pining for the 'condensed-ness' of the original. Also, the leader of the 'zombie squad' annoyed me a little bit. He seemed to start off as an uber-geek and ended up being tougher than Rambo. But those are just minor gripes. I think Part 2 is a great little number that doesn't detract from the original and has enough things in it that are new to warrant it standing out above many of the B-movie zombie films cluttering up bargain bins full of cheap DVDs you've never heard of.