Zombies, cool. Nazi Zombies, infinitely cooler. This is the basic premise under which Dead Snow was originally made back in 2009. To run down the original (which this movie does a great job of recapping for you in the first 10 minutes) a group of friends heads out to a cabin for a ski vacation and discover a box of treasure. It just so happens that the gold is actually Nazi gold, and opening it awakens a company of dead Nazi soldiers from under the snow and, BOOM, Nazi zombies. From there it’s pretty standard zombie faire, albeit in an awesome way, leaving only one survivor in the end, Martin who was bitten but was able to saw his arm off in time ala Evil Dead 2. Dead Snow: Red Vs Dead picks up immediately following the events of its predecessor with Martin soaking in the viscera and horror of what has just happened which, by the way, includes him accidentally killing his girlfriend with a hatchet…by the way folks, if your significant other is currently rage killing a zombie with a hatchet it’s probably not a good idea to walk up behind them in that moment, just saying. Anyway, as Martin makes it to his car he gets attacked again by a group of zombies including their commander, Herzog. Usually that’s not an issue, just drive away, except for the fact that he has a manual transmission and is missing his right arm. Finally! A decent reason for our hero to not get away immediately when there are monsters outside of your car. As he makes his getaway the Nazi commander is hanging from his car until he gets hit by a passing truck leaving his severed nazi arm flopping in Martin’s front seat. Passing out Martin awakens in a hospital to find that the doctors mistook Herzog’s severed arm for his own, and attached it. With Herzog’s Nazi’s reassuming their old mission to wipe out a small town Martin must jump back in the fight with the help of his new zombie arm all while evading the police who think he killed all of his friends (what? They didn’t buy the old Nazi Zombies killed my friends bit?). 
Does that sound utterly ridiculous to you? In a good way or a bad way? I ask these questions because, in all honesty, my review could end right there. If you answered “in a good way”, you’re going to dig this movie, its really that simple. They take that premise and chock it up with all the great, silly, gory fun of the first film and maybe even a little more. Other than the top level premise almost everything about this movie is pretty standard, from the main plot point of a possessed arm to the zombie kills, you’ve seen it all before…just not like this. Dead Snow: Red Vs Dead is one of those flicks that proves you can put all of those overused tropes of film in your movie and still have a blast of a flick, as long as you do it right! While there is a lot of familiarity to the movie there’s a lot of new ground broken as well, first and foremost being the power of Herzog. He functions almost like the Queen Bee in a hive mentality-laden zombie horde. He can revive the dead by touch and convert the living the same way, no need to bite…a power given also to Martin thanks to the transplant. It’s a really cool switch and melds with the new threat perfectly. Instead of just being brainless flesh eaters the dead are driven to accomplish what they were stopped from doing in life. We find out, as I said previously, that Herzog and his men were on their way to wipe out a small town. What I didn’t mention was that we later find out that Herzog and his men executed a Russian unit on their way there. Seeing Martin, using his newfound zombie powers, bring a group of dead Russian soldiers out of the ground in order to lead them in an undead battle royale against the Nazi’s is a thing of beauty. 
In the mix of all this is the Zombie Squad, an American crew Martin recruits to push the odds in their favor. He thinks he’s getting a paramilitary merc squad, what he gets is a geeky trio lead by Daniel (Martin Star of Freaks & Geeks fame). Here’s where they went in another new direction, instead of being incompetent geeks out of their depths, they actually kick some ass….even if it seems to be mostly luck. Rounding out the cast of characters is a small town police department who have never seen anything resembling “action”. Disposable but hilarious, the Norwegian branch of the Barney Fife academy really adds a nice touch on top of what is already a bucket of gross undead fun. 
Speaking of gross and undead, let’s get to that gore shall we? I mean, that is one of the major draws of a zombie flick, right? Now I know I said that the kills were standard, and they are, with a special emphasis on pulling out intestines. Where they really excel is in two places, the comedy and the production value. I’m going to guess it would have been much cheaper for this small indie movie out of Norway to use CGI but there are practical effects abounding throughout, I don’t know if I say one obvious CGI shot, and boy does it pay off. The shear ick factor given by the work they did is worth the price of admission, look especially to the first severed head you see, there’s this glazed squishy-ness quality to all of the effects shots that really make you shudder. But, you know, in a good way. One last thing on the effects side of things, really a question more than anything else, why is it that I can watch all the gore this movie can throw at me without batting an eye but the first scene involving vomit immediately makes me squirm? The second place they really get it right is possibly the most important aspect, the comedy. None of this works if it’s not genuinely absurd and funny, especially considering it’s not the least bit frightening. I’m trying to think of a place where they jokes fell flat and, while I’m sure there were some, I can’t remember any. Just now I said it’s absurd and funny, that’s probably better said so absurd it becomes funny, the things they get away with make you laugh, and then make you question whether or not you should feel bad for laughing. Say, two mothers walking their infants in strollers getting blown all to bits by a 70 year old Nazi tank, for instance. I should also include that, though the kids are covered pre-explosion, there is a quick second of a tiny infant flying at the screen. See, now we’re back to “If it’s not funny, it doesn’t work”. So what’s the final word? I’ll revert to my earlier question, does this sound utterly ridiculous to you? This is a simple movie to review, there’s no nuance, either it’s your thing or it’s not. If it’s not, I didn’t write this for you, I wrote this solely to remind those who dug it about Dead Snow, and to let them know that Dead Snow: Red Vs Dead is a follow-up that’s just as good, if not better, than the original.
4 out of 5 Guttenbergs
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