Dead Snow 2: Red VS Dead Review

When I first watched the original Dead Snow years ago on my girlfriend's recommendation I definitely enjoyed it but was pretty sleepy at the time and always meant to give it another try as I felt I hadn't given it it's fair shake.  I did that late last year and wasn't sorry.  The movie is a gorefest filled with self-aware characters and an over the top plot that I totally dug.  The main thing that stuck with me about the flick even from that original viewing was that the characters in the movie were horror fans themselves and by extension it's clear that the people behind making the movie were too.  So what would those horror fans come up with when it was time to make a sequel to their cult hit?  Their answer was apparently:  "Let's go crazy with it."

In all honesty this is the first zombie movie that I've watched in quite a while that didn't bore me.  The zombie thing has become so prevalent today that it's hard to stay interested, but director Tommy Wirkola and his writing partners Stig Frode Henriksen and Vegar Hoel deliver such a unique and interesting spin on the sub-genre that you might forget for a minute that zombies have become television staples, in league with other creatures such as the "20 something New Yorkers" and "The five member nuclear family".   The prevelance of zombie culture is even poked a bit of fun at in the movie with a few characters being American zombie nerds fiending for a real zombie attack, something most horror fans have at least come across.  But anyways, not only are these zombies Nazis, as you probably knew, but they also have a lot in common with traditional zombies...the old school ones that were resurrected with a purpose like completing a task for a master or retrieving something, not just shambling corpses like Romero's classics.  Throw in some supernatuaral elements, such as characters with the ability to raise the dead (no matter how many times they have died), and it's clear this isn't some Night of the Living Dead retread.

The first Dead Snow actually did start as somewhat of a slow-burn, cabin in the woods style horror movie that eventually devolved into gore soaked insanity but this entry picks up exactly where the original left off and just gets crazier by the minute.  I would say it's not random that a character in the first Dead Snow was wearing a shirt of Peter Jackson's Brain Dead (Dead Alive), as this movie could almost be seen as a spiritual successor to that movie.  Make no doubt about it, this is a horror comedy in league with classics like Jackson's early films, Michele Soavi's Dellamorte Dellamore (Cemetary Man), and Sam Raimi's immortal Evil Dead 2.  And, like those movies, this one throw all good taste out the window.  I thought I had almost grown out of shock/gross out humor but I found myself genuinely laughing at the moments where they were obviously trying to offend.  Children, old people, mothers and their babies in strollers...nobody is safe in this movie.  Plus, there are tons of great deaths and stunts (this movie wasn't made on a shoe string budget, there was money put to good use on this one) that would be right at home on one of Joe Bob Brigg's classic Drive-In Totals.

All in all, if you enjoy horror-comedies, you probably won't be disappointed in this one.  I have to give it my full recommendation.  Check it out! - TG