Dead Snow
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
Are you feeling stupid, punk? Are you? And I intend that only in a “Do you want to think at all or just watch a bunch of shit and shrieking occur on the tv in front of you while listening to a guttural language and bad music in the same guttural language?” way. ‘cause that’s kinda what this is. Idiots go to cabin, find gold, Nazis wake up and kill everyone. Along the way we try to think up some new uses for the same toolshed of potential weapons, and then we add in a snow-mobile, to give our movie some identity. Our zombies are a cast of thousands that’s limited to a six-year old’s imagination yet forbidden to simply be zombies, and we joke about how formulaic our movie is without having any ability to bring anything new to the table. Why’d they have to try to make it a comedy? Re-invest the comedic effort back into the horror, cut out the “playing in the snow” bullshit that took up 20 percent of the daylight filming, and let’s just have some more traditional mayhem. You obviously have what it takes. This movie feels like something great and natural was created, and then rough crude openings were hacked into it, and these were stuffed with trendy glitter-glows. What I mean is the camp was campy. Whoot. The guy cut his own arm off. Noooo. By the last act ¾ the cast was dead and the rest was crimson and grimacing. Noooo. Just fucking admit that you set out to write and film a lazy script. You thought that talking about how you were blatantly retreading the steps of cannon would be ironic and then when YOUR movie got all over-the-top and wacky, people’d be like, hey, didn’t see that coming! But it was telegraphed like one of Steven Segals’ punches. Nothing was added by making these Nazi zombies. Nothing was added by the embrace of still-conscious-point-of-view-disembowelment. If you’d captured my attention with a good zombie movie, I wouldn’t be complaining about it. But you didn’t. Instead, there was a snow mobile.
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- A man in love with his snowmobile convinces a group of friends to wait for him at a cabin in the woods while he goes snowmobiling
- His friends throw a fake party and find real gold and do not secure sound financial planning advice
- Nazi zombies show up with 14-inch bayonets and stab everyone no less than 147 times
- There’s a lot of running around a dying set to a bad soundtrack
- 4 Non-Blondes does the only interesting thing in the movie and possibly sends her friend Barbie off to die as bait
- Snowmobile shows up and uses, like, his snowmobile to kill a bunch of the zombies, but it’s not enough, ‘cause just when you think you’re gonna make it- whoops! Forgot about that! And boom! You’re dead! Not… That I’m saying everyone dies. That LAST guy makes it out alive.
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
Stupid. Nazi. It’s both. They look kinda like gophers. There’s an emphasis on teeth. They’re all wearing their uniforms. There’s one boss zombie who we learn about and whatever his name is doesn’t matter since not only does he have a different hat, he has a gopher-ish scar on his face. And the camera treats him with reverence. As the old man in the narrative told us, a bunch of zombies were being assholes and when they wore out their welcome they grabbed everything of value from town and put it in a small box and then the townspeople chased the Nazis into the woods where they hid the box in a cabin before all dying spread out on the forest floor? Or maybe in ice-caves? It’s both really over-explained without being clear at all. The zombies aren’t really bite and eat you either- they’re more like tackle you and then stab you 147 times. No less. Or they do weird fucked up Saw type torture porn bullshit like rip out your innards and then put a grenade in you. It’s ham-handed and juvenile in their evil-ness. Which is fucking stupid, because they’re zombies. I think the fuck up is that the assumption is that Nazi zombies are gonna be worse than regular zombies, and that’s just dumb. Regular zombies want to eat you. Full fucking stop. They might rip you apart, but that’s not malicious, it’s delicious! We saw one guy get bit and not deaded instantly, but there were no signs of him turning. That would have been too interesting. Zombies had firearms, but didn’t use them? All these zombies want is their gold. Which makes the whole super-evil thing dumb. These are essentially utilitarian ant drone zombies. You take their gold, they break you until they have their gold back. But… did Barbie have gold? Was that what 4 Non Blondes gave her? I thought it was a car key. Why were the zombies so vicious to Barbie? And tubby white smudge? They cold ripped his head apart! Why’d they save Sarah’s head? There’s a lot here that doesn’t make sense, and I think we’re all supposed to go “Oh, but they’re NAZI zombies!!” and nod along with the genre as if we’re in the back room of an adult movie arcade and we don’t want to offend anyone by risk of judging, no matter how strange or pointless the suggestion or offering is. I’m just saying that “Add in everything and anything ‘cause we can and we’ll just say because they’re Nazi’s and people have to believe us.” Only works if I’ve already agreed to believe you. And I didn’t. All this bitching aside, the zombie gore-work was great, and most of the zombie acting was good- there were some great “crowd of zombie waiting” moments and some really feral kills… I’d prefer to see the whole thing re-shot with regular, non-Nazi zombies. I think it’d be an improvement.
Where the money went
Where the money went
For that stupid snow mobile. That was not a very valuable contribution. None of the “That was COOL moments involving it were cool. Like I said, maybe a youth of American stupidity jaded me, but I know what happens when you’re tearing across a field on the back of a 4-wheeler holding onto your friend for dear life, and you say “WHAT?” instead of ducking when they suddenly scrunch down while yelling ‘DUCK!!”. The electric fence shorts out after you’ve pulled about 20 yards of it out and gotten yourself pulled off the back of the machine. I know what fireworks going off in the palm of my hand feel like. I know what intentionally crashing and totaling a car feels like. I didn’t see stunts in this movie- I saw some idiot with an expensive toy who’d convinced people there’d be cool stunts. And if not, what the fuck was the camera on him for that long for? Allow me to re-reference Sir Wheadon’s Cabin In The Woods. Yes, there’s a cool-ass motorcycle, but it only gets yoinked out for a plot thingy. Money went to good production values all around. Even when they were like, “Hey, I got an idea! Let’s put the blood on with a really fine mister today!” and then later were like “Oh! Let’s throw pork and beans at each other now!” they made it look good. Too good. And not because I got anything against how good it looked, but that it was obvious that they had 18 cooks in that kitchen where some of the other kitchens (script, anyone? Music? Sexual energy continuity?) could have used some help? Wow. I’m so fucking high right now. Damn. It’s late….
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
The Obvious Thing to write here is that The Snowmobile is the Best Weapon of The Movie. I also only had one beer, Officer.
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
Please…. Allow me… to effuse. That scene… ARISE!! Woodchuck face boss zombie bellows, you hear the mountains cracking… and then the fists, the claws… smashing through, well, the snow, to be completely honest and just a little bit disappointed about… but forget that it’s snow, and yes, sir, you can get a hand!! By the damn bushel! There are long shots of dozens of zombies crunching upward, there’s close-ups over the shoulder as they claw their way up and out, there’s blurry snow blurring out the camera as it gets knocked aside… Dammit!! You know that iconic scene in Lord of the Rings where the party is hiding under the roots by the side of the road and the dark rider is paused above them, sniffling, causing such menace that the bugs themselves are writing out of the dirt? Sorry, Peter, but this scene beats that one like a high-school brother come down to the middle-school playground to stop his little sister from getting pushed around anymore by the head 4th grader. These zombies… I was ready for anything! They could have crouched and started snapping and shuffling in unison towards me and I would have exclaimed “YES! I’ve hated every single version of West Side Story that I’ve ever seen but I’m fucking ready to LOVE this version! Beats the fucking Bard already, it does!” Umm… So. Yeah. Let me calm myself. I’ll drink some water. I’ve had enough coffee. (More beans Mr. Taggart? No, I do believe you’ve had enough!)
Let’s get serious here about the hand thing. I want to do a quick rating. A list.
- I feel like that black and white… Zombie had a good hand scene. Kinda started it, maybe. I’m free-associating here, don’t quote me or ask me to remember this.
- Oasis of the Zombies? Did that one have a crap-ton of hand reach-ups?
- Shit- I just saw another one that wasn’t a zombie one but had a great hand reaching scene.
- Then there’s another one I can’t think of the name of.
Yeah. This scene. I’m gonna call it. This “Cast of thousands Nazi-blue-ball rising” event sets a new bar. I gotta say this is probably an 8 in the cosmic sense. At the moment, it’s a 10, but I know… well, probably it’s a little less than an 8. Hear me out. I gotta dock a point ‘cause of uniformity. Yeah, I get it. All Nazis. But that doesn’t add anything for me, so you lose a point for it looking like clone city. And second, you lose another one ‘cause it’s snow. That was silly. Cheap, I’m sure, but… properly buried is in dirt. These fools be climbing out of tapioca, I deduct a point just the same. Gotta be fair. But that said, this was great. Some of the best shot zombie-breach I’ve seen.
That was new!
That was new!
The Obvious Thing to write here is that I’ve NEVER seen a snowmobile used so artfully to wreak havoc on zombies. But that’d be a lie. I can’t elaborate further without self-incrimination though, so you’re going to have to take my word on it. But I promise. And it was wicked cool.
Review Notes
Review Notes
I’m already kinda hungry.
Ok. First order of business complete. Oh, that was yummy.
Nice blue filter, I think this alferh kicjcock presents?
Whatever, it’s great chase music! Are those apes?
No, they’re zombies! Which can sneak up to literally standing in front of you before you notice. Like, they must crawl or scuttle really fast and then POP up and startle you!
Which causes you to fall! And something broke! And that’s good zombie savaging! Tree shaking! Pomp and circumstance!
“Finger for me party yeah…” Norwegian music is good.
4 dorks in a car… one looks like Steve-O if he never took drugs. Driver looks like one of the members of Silverchair. “You’re gonna pay too, fatboy!!”
Ok.. all the men in one car, all the women in the second. And they’re planning hookups.
“Roy is the horniest guy north of the artic circle.”
Why do these groups of friends always go out intending to hook up but they never have before? Like, did the force fields just come down?
They drive identical cars?
Yeah, I remember that snowmobile. And it’s hiking time
One’s not even for gloves.
A conversation about how many horror movies start off exactly such as their present circumstances- the group of friends going to a cabin. And maybe that’s part of why I didn’t like it? And am still kinda feeling like I don’t like it? It’s got that formula. The one they’re joking about. Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m autistic or whatever, but it’s like the difference between cheese slices that were cut from a big block of cheese, and cheese slices that were injected as liquid form into the plastic sleeves that you pull apart to reveal the congealed contents within. I mean, yeah, they hella-overly processed product may actually melt a lot better, but you can’t get a good cheddar flavor. Nor, really, any other cheese flavor. Any cheese flavor. All the flavor you get is that processed thing that sits in your mouth like a toad when it could be cheddar cheese. I feel that way about this movie. It could have been a real zombie movie. Why did they set out to make a formula one?
The movies they name-check? 1: Friday the 13th 2: Evil Dead 1&2 3: April Fool’s Day
This is some pretty rarified air they’re putting themselves up with. Friday the 13th fucking scarred me, I’m such an Evil Dead fanboy that I jumped up on stage after a taping of Ash’s trivia game show and stole a couple of his question cards… but I have no idea what April Fool’s day is. I think it’s a slasher from the 80’s that presents itself as showing a lot of shower skin but instead is mostly shrieking and visceral red gushing here and there? I might have seen it, or maybe I’m thinking of, like, Slumber Party Massacre or whatever. I’ll maybe have to try to remember to look April Fool’s Day up.
That is NOT the evil dead cabin tho. That’s like, Martha Stewarts’s evil cabin.
Well shot and edited. Even if people hiking isn’t interesting.
Oh! 2nd movie reference! This is a movie for film people!
Fun with inner tubes and a snow mobile. I think this is the Nordic equivalent of American mudding and bonfire party footage? There’s bad rock music, that’s for sure. And a snowball right. Kinda obligatory.
Twister! Who plays twister sober? Een they’re complaining that it’s boring
“Lie down and I’ll show you the anesthetic of the Middle Ages.” No. No, I will not and you will now shut up and we will not and never ask me to play with you ever again. ‘cause I’ll fucking stab you in the liver, you fucking weird fuck. Who says that?
And now he’s sitting on her face with a pillow smothering her? He was just kidding? What the fuck? The rest of the friends… who the fuck brought this guy? They just look awkward. That’s some serious “Punch that fucker in the side of the head if he did that to a friend” type shit.
Speaking of, now we’re in an outhouse. Yay.
A card game.
Ooh! An English word! Beer! As if… the set hasn’t been comprised of 20 beer empties this entire time. That’s how we know you’re partying.
And… real life… explosions just popped off next door or whatever. Gotta love Christmas fireworks. Noel, motherfucker, noel.
I like footage of blonde women in the bathroom as much as the next guy, I guess…
*I* didn’t see anything, but I saw movement.
And then… I saw… Richard Butler.
No. But maybe one of his uncles.
Who the fuck is this guy, why is he in their cabin? Why is he drinking their beer and insulting their coffee? Why is he asking all these questions and why are they answering and why the fuck did they let him in? He’s damn rude!
But, he’s giving us the backstory. Something about Russians and Germans and ships and Heinz and shipping logistics. There was a bad Nazi. Imagine that. And he was in charge. And at the end of the war, the Nazis stole everything and the people revolted and grabbed “Anything that might break a skull” and chased the bad men out of town and into the frozen woods and it disappeared and could still be out there today.
Yup. There. Now we know what we’re up against.
First, let’s mock the old guy! Yes! Incur some wrath with our pride and vanity! Don’t reflect that you look like a weasel!
REALLY didn’t like that coffee.
“If you stand with your own intestines in your hands, then what do you do?” A bit of an over-reaction, but I get his point and equally dislike that weasel guy.
Fucker sleeps with his headband on. Man, I couldn’t be friends with him.
Fucking creepy dream. Fucking creepy dream. Fucking creepy dream.
Dude. That guy in his tent. All alone out there. So perfect. I wish we were out camping. I mean, I’m sure it’s going to end poorly for him, but still… I like camping.
He looks like he’s going through withdrawal or something. AND he’s twitchy.
Snow…
Snow…
Fuck, that was fast. And it cut his neck. And then climbed in the tent and stabbed him 147 times.
I guess these are knife wielding zombies.
And we’re splitting up! The single dude who appears competent had a bad dream- it was scary! And now he took the snowmobile to look for his girlfriend who is skiing from somewhere else. Good.
‘Cause these guys gotta have a sled race. And … yeah. So much snowmobile crap. I like wheelie bikes and muddy jeeps. I think snowmobiles- especially ones that look like transformer scorpions- are dumb. Especially since I’ve seen you jump that one straight up… and then flop it back down into snow… 8 times by now. My friend Stu does the same thing with a jet-ski. I go watch him when I want to see cool jet skiing. You know what I watch when I don’t want to see jet skiing? Anything else. And he keeps his fucking jet-ski out of my zombie movies. What the fuck is this doing here? Enough with it already. I’d be fine if this was 30 Days of Night snow mobiles- but this is like the kid from Cabin in the Woods bringing his motocross bike along on the trip. It’s a selfish dick movie activity wise, and how well did it end for him? He jumped, and then, like, hit a hawk with an energy beam… and fell in a well… They should have got Seth Green for that nerd-genius role. Joss, maaaaaaaaan… spot on!!
And spot fucking on with that corpse! I like it!! Makes me think of The Thing! And that’s good!
The chubby pasty pale rotund guy is wearing a “Braindead” T-Shirt. We get it. By movie people, for movie people. BMP FMP.
(dramatic) We found a box!!!!
Gold! A box of gold! Smaug!
Sara!!
We’re walking up that snowy hill instead of driving the snowmobile… why?
Oh. So we could fall through the crack in the ice. Gotcha, plot! I shouldn’t have questioned motive when the results were what mattered to move the narrative along! (God, I’m being such a little bitch. I apologize to all you Bavarians involved in the making of this movie. I don’t hate you.)
Most fucked up thing ever. “Y’all. I’ll be back, y’all.” Mind you, this is a drunken Austrian medical student phonetically quoting an English statement made with an overwhelming Austrian accent by a native Austrian speaker. So. What I’m saying is that… this… should sound exactly like when Arnold said it. I want to fund a blind listening test to…. I can’t keep a straight face. You need to listen to this. Especially the “yaargh yaargh yaargh!” that he ends it with. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t in the cut of The Terminator that I saw, but maybe some other version was released in Finland?
How much of the plot for this movie is going to be facilitated by going to the outhouse?
The gold hitting the snow… like the gold hitting the water in Pirates of the Caribbean?
“There are good jokes that don’t include poop, pee, or semen.” Thank you. I’d like to think that this goes without saying, but maybe not in Norway.
She’s… straddling him in the outhouse. Sucking on his finger. Disrobing. Gyrating. They’re having sex. Outside, a mottled and decaying hand has just picked up the dropped piece of gold, and inside she’s leaning her head back in ecstasy, and the hand is actually much more realistic and believable, ‘cause I’ve been in many outhouses and none of them are anything resembling any place that you’d want to have sex. And I have never been accused of lofty standards.
And… he left her in the outhouse to go back inside and burp triumphantly.
So.
He goes and takes a shit.
She comes out and before he can stand, jumps his bones and they make sex.
She (literally) turns around and sits down to take a shit.
I mean… at least the seat was still warm. In a good way. Not like at Applebee’s. That just makes me sad.
Growling Peeping Tom Zombies!
And… disappearing outhouse seats?
The music to this movie sucks.
Oh. You’re covered in shit. Your own, plus the guy you just hooked up with.
And somehow, you’re injured badly. I feel like I missed something.
But really, the music sucks. It’s like homogenized nu-metal. It’s like something out of south Florida.
Zombie-vision is pretty cool. Purple tint to it. I bet it’s like having Prince-Vision.
That… is a nice shotgun. I have one quite similar.
Never give the firearm to the chubby oaf. Never.
They found Sarah’s backpack outside.
And then there’s a head in the window! Whoot!
Arms through the window!
Growls through the wind!
Hair chop! Couch throw!
Those are good zombies! Silly hats, but good!
Ok. Shaking the cabin like this? Bouncing everything? Evil Dead.
Good hand severing!
“Don’t get bitten! Don’t get bitten!”
And then… he’s pulled backwards through a window, fingers are inserted into his eyes, his head is pulled apart, and his brain lands like a filleted fish on the floor. In all respects, I’d have been fine being bitten. And fuck, That was well done gore.
“We should have gone to the beach like I told you!”
Oh. Super nice mountains. Fuck. Sisters Wilderness is my favorite place in the world.
But this dude is in some ice cave thing. Punch our way out! Sun! Grimace!
Cold. (This is the dude’s capacity to act)
Now we find out that the only guy who knows the way back to the cars is the one out on the snowmobile falling through the ice…
Yes! One of them just suggested they split up! What took so long?
How is this a language? It’s got like, three syllables and grunting.
The guys are insulting the zombie’s manliness, the women are running. Good plan.
And… Snowmobile has a torch. He’s in some kinda tunnel, Ice tunnel? Is this the plot? We’re 50 down and 40 to go and I think he’s found graves? In the ice? Nazi flags and guns, that’s for sure! And grunting, so that means zombies!
A line of helmets…
A fucking head!
That’s gross.
“Come on! Fucking coward!” Next thing we see is him tumbling head over heels through the air, obviously on the receiving end of an ass-kicking
These zombies are tackle-stab-punch-bite-headbutt zombies. They attack in that order. So if this were Mike Tyson’s Punchout, we’d go left left right right…
Ok. Bit the zombie. That’s new, didn’t see it coming, has the capacity to open up whole fucking schools of philosophic thought here… this is new…
Ok. You got me. I didn’t jump, but I what the fucked. Nice Hand-Through-Snow.
The zombies look like gophers.
Everyone is running around a lot and there’s drums.
We’re lost and covered in blood. Growling
Splitting up again?
Yes. Screaming at each other helps. So does slapping.
Once again, it’s a gopher “pop up out of no-where” zombie. This one was wearing all white, in the snow, so… did he tunnel? Like… a gopher?
Snow-mobile boy is still getting his ass kicked… some slapstick… slapping… with a stick… he can throw a knife. Nice.
The zombie’s blood is pulsing.
This is such an obvious plot-twist cliché that I’m not going to justify explaining it, but I’ll say this- this is one of the better “Hanging onto a zombie’s entrails for dear lift off the edge of a cliff while another zombies hangs off you and gnaws at you while the zombie whose guts you’re grasping writhes around on the tree with a bayonet in it’s eye” that I’ve seen this year. Last year, well, this wouldn’t have even borne mentioning, but you know, covid… things have been slow.
4 Non Blondes is a vicious zombie stomper. Barbie… not so much. I think this is what 4 Non Blondes mean when she said they needed to split up so one of them would live. Barbie just didn’t know what that meant. And I think this is Barbie’s POV as she gets dismembered. The movie is very solemn. Um… So… I used the wrong technical term. Dismembered was an assumption. What I saw was more evisceration; the intestines being pulled out. I, silly me, assumed they were being eaten! By the zombies! But no… the zombie now has what I believe is called a Potato(e) Masher Grenade, and Barbie is still alive somewhat, and I think they’re going to put A into B and see…
4 Non Blondes is running… and there’s an explosion in the distance. She doesn’t seem to be that upset.
Big squad of zombies. Binoculars. Scurrying
Why are the regular uniform zombies covered in blood and stains, but the snow zombies totally spotless? I mean, I agree it makes the movie plot device thing work, but…
And she’s looking at eggs. I hear a bird. I this really happening? Yes. She caught a bird by the head and bashed it repeatedly against the tree she’s hiding in so the zombies under the tree won’t hear the bird and look up and see her. And she did this all in front of the birds eggs. That’s just cold. And not just ‘cause we’re in Scandinavia. And… the zombies are below and see her anyway. At least… she’s armed with a dead crow now?
Can zombies climb? Yup. Quite well.
Is this the girl we saw die in the very beginning? Without the blue filter…
Damn. That’s a cliff.
She’s trying to break the ice ledge she’s standing on. Why?
And the zombie ran at her and it broke and they both fell… I feel like I could beat her at chess.
Just had to take a quick break, the Pitbull really wanted to go out. And then didn’t like that it’s raining, so stood there discontentedly until I called her back in. Great pets. Quickly ordered another jar of CBD gummies on Groupon though while I was waiting for her to maybe do something. God, I love gummies. And CBD. And Groupon, I think. Maybe it’ll turn out that they’re evil. I hope not.
We got 25 minutes left, the group is scattered, most of them are getting their asses kicked, and I think 4 Non Blondes sorta set Barbie up to die. Maybe not intentionally to have a hand grenade detonated inside her chest cavity, but… I think maybe they coulda worked together better. But maybe that’s not 4 Non Blonde’s style. Now she’s at the bottom of an ice cliff with a zombie.
Guys in the cabin just tried to throw a Molotov out a window at a zombie… hit the window frame… and… such a good look. I’m sorta kinda getting it. This is like… another culture’s version of Broken Lizard. This is their zombie version of state cop movies.
2 nerds in a shed, time to make weapons.
Chainsaw…really?
And Snow Mobile… Is stitching his own neck up with a fishing line. That’s a bit bad-ass and hard-core and improbable. He’s got duct tape. He stitched his neck up with a fish hook, then duct taped it, then mounted a WW2 machine gun on his snow-mobile. I’m… well, I’d have skipped the fishing line and just went to the duct tape. And the machine gun and snowmobile… look. Americans have been doing jackass shit like this in real life for a while. Some of us grew up doing stupid shit in this flavor and vein. I and other friends have been hurt in firearm and explosive accidents. Up until the helmet brigade took over America, we grew up with scars and at least one kid in your town was missing part of an ear or something. I still believe a school to teach people to shoot a handgun while riding a motorcycle is a viable business venture. I’m not impressed by an old machine gun and a snowmobile. Guns and vehicles have been the American way for too long. Impress me.
And the zombie almost got him but then the tree hit the zombie and knocked the zombie down.
4 Non Blonds is crying. She’s covered in snow. She’s screaming. This is like The Decent. And her snot is dripping up. Ok, that changes things. The camera is rolling. My belly is sicky. You don’t need a plot when you can just fuck with people’s sense of claustrophobia and being trapped underground and shit. You hear that, Decent? You didn’t need to add an attempt at a plot, it was scary enough to just imagine being trapped. Fuck whatever albino thingies those where. Way far second to just feeling trapped. Great film work, shitty story.
Oh. Yeah. Uh… Zombie head kick-red-splash
Folk rock in a language that uses accordions to score a gang fight between the two dorks and a bunch of zombies. And more come… I can’t understand anything.
Snowmobile shows up. Machine guns some zombies. Jumps his snowmobile onto another her one. Then beats one up as it fights and throws it on the ground, then picks up the snowmobile and drops it on the zombie, and revs it… then beats up another zombie hand to hand and stuffs HIS arm into, like, the chain or belt of the snowmobile and revs it a lot like a… grinder? Or something?
Yeah, there’s a reason your friends are looking at you like that. It’s ‘cause they just realized what kind of person you must be to get professional funding for a zombie movie where the main premise is you use your really expensive snow mobile as a zombie killing device. They’re wondering what lies you told to get this movie financed. They’re wondering what lies you’ve told them.
And then you stand stock still as 14 zombies stab you simultaneously with the studied choreography of a Broadway Shakespeare production, and then… they hoist you up like a jolly good fellow and then each rip off a limb? You know? While you look at your friends and they look… uncomfortable?
I mean, it was convenient, I was wondering how they were going to deal with you being bit earlier…
A carnival of gore and axes….
Dude. You just killed 4 non blondes. I mean, she’s taking her time dying, but you put an axe in her. What a dick. Major major fail.
NOW you use the shotgun. Maybe… never mind. You’re being bit. You deserve it.
Wow. That was some pork and beans type gore. Ick.
Don’t cut your arm off. Even if you DO have an extra $20k in the budget you need to use….
Ok. Great face there. Really sad that it went like that tho. I think you just got your dick bit by a zombie? I can’t tell? That didn’t look good tho.
Arms galore! So many!! Such good clawing! so many bodies! So… good. So good. This is like dying and going to an island of honey-boobs. It’s shot after shot of dozens of zombies punching and clawing their way up out of the snow… it’s… like… going to the land of black and white honey-boobs…. Why is it all snow? And why are they all Nazi zombies? I don’t want to look honey-boob gift-zombies in the Nazi-mouth, but all of them looking exactly the same, uniform and all… does this make it scarier to some people? Is this “masses of the replicate” trigger some specific fear in some people that I don’t get? To me, it’s like a videogame where they used the same graphic file redundantly so you see 6 of the same red-haired dwarf standing there ready to fight with my party.
But fuck. That’s top 5 for Can I get a hand type mass grave rising… Shit…. Oh. Gonna rewind!! ARISE!!!
Typical… Run away….
And keep running… and have trouble navigating that very specific tree… take 2 minutes….
Whoops! That’s a hammer to your head!
That was so fucking not ok. Here I was enjoying him stagging around in disbelief… he just took a hammer to the head… he’s gonna maybe burble something, reach for his friend or something… then topple… and no, we change the fucking camera angle to see that somehow, he’s been cut across his abdomen and his intestines are yoineked out and tied to a mother fucking tree and with each step he’s taken since the hammer hit, he’s pulled them a bit further out… No! Didn’t need to see that. Fucking knock him down and eat his ass. Not literally. But you know what I mean. This uber-graphic one-upsman-shit isn’t fun to me.
There’s a rule in film-making- if you can’t do it totally fucking convincingly, don’t cut one of your characters arms off. You should have heeded.
Very strange, oily, groveling ending…
The Nazi’s just wanted their gold, after all. The college kids shouldn’t have stolen it. From the dead Nazis. Who stole it from living villagers back in world war 2. Because it belonged to the Nazis then. After they’d stolen it. So the students shouldn’t have stolen it. From the Nazis. See? This is the bullshit you have to deal with when you watch Bavarian movies. This and crappy music.
Oh! Nice! I like that ending. A LOT.
Ending credits is the best music of the movie. Sounds like Shonen Knife meets L7. Fuck, I like this. I think they’re called LA Laplanders. Laplanders is, like, a Finnish Cultural or Ethnicity or something. I have no idea what I’m talking about and hope I’m not offending anyone, I’m just saying that it means something, it’s not just syllables.
————End Transmission——————–
Introduction
Introduction
I’m wary, yawning, and hopeful. I agree, must discourse.
I slept a good chunk of the day after my run. I thought I was just lying down for a bit, but then it was later and I was waking up and I really didn’t and still don’t feel as rested as one ought to after lying down for a couple hours and all that.
But, I’ve got some disgustingly strong coffee; and I don’t mean that in anything cutesy or coy or praise or whatnot- this is some take-the-grease-off-the-axle bitter strong-ass-acidic “whoops, poured the very first drippings off the beans” stuff my wife didn’t want.
So I’m trying to drink it, but it keeps punching me in the stomach. I believe I’ll continue (grimaces) to add milk to it. That only doesn’t explain anything though. It just is a paragraph about too-strong coffee. I promise I’m not just creating filler. I’m typing what the words want me to.
And the Coffee. I’m hopeful the strong coffee is going to keep me awake for the next couple hours so I can do this. Dead Snow. The first of two, I believe. (I feel like Bart Simpson faking his way through his book report presentation of Treasure Island) “Pirates… with… Parrots! And eye-patches!”
I’ll admit it. This is the second time I’ve tried to watch Dead Snow. I remember going to see it in the theaters when it came out, and I also remember not liking it. It was back in the drinking days, so who knows what the hell actually happened, but what I *remember* is that a bunch of European annoying winter people all go a cabin and there’s some fancy snowmobiles and then I think there’s 40 minutes of Nazi zombies (or zombie Nazis?) lurching out of snowbanks going “Yaaaargh!”. And… something breaks in through a window?
I have no idea if I finished the movie. I think I did, since up until now I’d swear that the only movie I ever walked out of was The Airport, or whatever that Tom Hanks one is. I think that’s the only movie I walked out of. (Only concert I ever walked out on was The Smashing Pumpkins, but that’s because I couldn’t tell when their signature feedback ended and their signature songs that sounded like feedback began. After watching them wander around on stage for 20 minutes while my ears rang discordantly, I kind of remember walking an hour back to the car going “Mop” over and over.
I don’t remember much of that concert tho. And I don’t remember much of this movie. But I do remember reading reviews after I’d decided that it sucked and the reviews specifically said that it didn’t suck, and I was like…
Usually I’m not right there with Siskel or anything, but we generally see eye to eye. Like, if they say John Carpenter’s best movie is The Thing, I’m nodding and telling anyone who will listen that all I want is more movies like The Thing. Or Alien. But, I like movies, and I like good movies, and I like bad movies, and I’m usually able to tell them apart. Not ‘cause I like one more than the other, but because I… understand nutrition. And ridiculously vague references.
The point is, it has always bothered me that I watched a movie and was all “Meh.” And then other people who watch even more movies than I do and who I look up to watched the movie and were all “Yeah, it’s in Finnish or whatever but it’s a classic of the Zombie Nazi (Or Nazi Zombie?) genre!” and I’m here like “Hey, I knew there were a lot of zombie movies with Nazis in them and shit, including I think it’s Oasis of the Zombies which was really nothing more than a montage of a naked woman swimming but that didn’t make it a bad movie!” and no-one told me that now it’s it’s own genre.
Like in Short Circuit when the general was pissed off that no-one told him that they started calling Hueys Choppers. Or vice versa? There was a memo. He didn’t get it. And this is how I felt about Dead Snow. I watched it and didn’t like it. Everyone else watched it and liked it. So… Is this on me? Did I miss something? Do I just hate Danes so much I can’t appreciate their cinematic contributions?
My wife is a Swedish Nepalese princess, so lord knows I got nothing against the Nordic peoples. Except the ones that feel like being Nordic is all you need in life. And they’re the zombies in this movie. Which I’m going to watch again. I know I don’t remember shit, so this is most definitely going to be a fair appraisal. Accurate? Well, I’m awakeish with a gummy in my belly and two vapes in front of me and coffee strong enough to qualify for “Get away from her you bitch!” mouth drool… I’m feeling revved up and raring to go. So.
Just pulled it up on Amazon. 2009. Wasn’t back in the drinking days, I cut that out in 2008. So… Uh… In 2009 I was smoking a lot and also playing heavily with nitrous and salvia. I think that was the recreational diet at the time? I guess it’s possible I was in a bad mood or something?
I’m a little shocked, let me share this with you. I’ve always thought that I didn’t like Dead Snow because I was wasted and didn’t understand it, or didn’t have the patience for subtitles, or whatever. When I saw the 2nd Pirates of the Caribbean, or whichever it is that has the men captive in the two wicker balls hanging off the cliff and then they have to rescue Johnny Depp from the natives, I thought the fucking movie ended when he was running away from the natives through the surf and being chased.
I was dead convinced that I’d just sat through A: the entire 2-hour movie and B: a really bad 2-hour movie. It took my friend pulling me back down to the couch and telling me to shut up for me to realize that there was still more movie to watch.
So, yeah. Absolute fucking wrecking-ball level obliteration. And that, ladies and gentlemen, makes a powerful rationalizing statement when questioning why I didn’t like a zombie movie that is so critically acclaimed. Even now, I look at amazon- 4.5 stars with 644 reviews. People genuinely and uniformly like this movie. And they can’t all be biased on the pro-swede tip.
So, what’s my malfunction? If I wasn’t drinking, why didn’t I like this movie? What am I going to find? What am I going to remember? “Nazi zombies (Ok, it goes Nazi FIRST, and then zombie second. I’ve been struggling with that. I need a pneumonic. New Zealand. Ok. Hobbits. Got it.) Attack a group of friends vacationing at a cabin in the mountains in this chilling, cult-horror comedy.”
Maybe that’s what I didn’t appreciate the first time I attempted this. Maybe I went into it thinking it was horror and got put off by the comedy? Regardless, they’re about to get my $4.00 again. I’d like to state I think its dumb for an 11-year-old movie to cost $20.00 to purchase.
I could get Tenet for that price, and I can’t even rent Tenet. I have no idea if Tenet is a good movie or not, I just remember seeing that it was available for purchase for $20.00 when I logged into Prime. But it IS a new movie, and that’s sort of a standard new movie going rate, good or bad. Inception was good, but it took 2 watchings for me to figure out wtf. And here we are starting our 2nd watching of Dead Snow. Wtf.