{"id":15972,"date":"2022-03-12T12:38:24","date_gmt":"2022-03-12T17:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=15972"},"modified":"2026-07-24T16:04:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T20:04:23","slug":"dead-snow-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=15972","title":{"rendered":"Dead Snow-2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dead Snow-2009<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Tommy Wirkola<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Vegar Hoel, Stig Frode Henriksen<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #1,237<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed March 12, 2022<\/p>\n

Grade: B<\/strong><\/p>\n

First off, the cover art (pictured above) of the 2009 Norwegian horror-comedy film Dead Snow is simply incredible.<\/p>\n

The creepy Nazi head embedded in the snow with a background chainsaw is perfect marketing and genuinely artistic.<\/p>\n

It automatically makes the tired zombie horror genre feel fresh and alive with endless possibilities.<\/p>\n

The film itself is a decent watch, and tongue-in-cheek sensibilities are necessary to appreciate the movie.<\/p>\n

There is a hint of art film qualities peppered throughout, and it’s not a run-of-the-mill mainstream horror film either, but a sense of humor and embracing the ridiculousness is required.<\/p>\n

In other words, one must be a fan of the genre to watch Dead Snow. Otherwise, it will not win people over with a great storyline or character enrichment.<\/p>\n

It’s a slice-and-dice ’em affair, and after a slow build, it goes into overdrive with the kills and thrills.<\/p>\n

The familiar setup of a group of young people, this time intelligent medical students, heading off for a long weekend of booze and sex in a remote location gets Dead Snow off to an intriguing start.<\/p>\n

A lonely cabin in the middle of the snowy mountains of Norway is the primary setting for the Arctic Easter bloodbath.<\/p>\n

The eight of them plan to ski and relax during the time away. After one of their group disappears while on a solo cross-country hike, a mysterious resident (Bj\u00f8rn Sundquist) provides the remaining visitors with a backstory.<\/p>\n

In the last days of World War II, a battalion of Nazi soldiers disappeared into the nearby woods after the residents turned on them, and their zombified corpses remain on the prowl in the area looking for fresh meat.<\/p>\n

Of course, the students hoot and snicker at the stranger’s proclamations, but the audience knows full well the Nazi soldiers will emerge eventually.<\/p>\n

After all, in the very first scene, one of the students who never shows up to join the others is killed by an unidentifiable figure in the dark woods.<\/p>\n

If nothing else, Dead Snow is prime-grade entertainment. I eagerly awaited who from the group would be butchered first and how it might happen.<\/p>\n

As all fans of the slasher horror genre know, those who party or have sex are not long for this world, and Dead Snow is no different.<\/p>\n

What is different from a straight-ahead release is the dark humor that encompasses the film. When one student who is deathly afraid of blood must remove his arm with a chainsaw after being bitten, he does so with deep seriousness and precision.<\/p>\n

The macabre scene nearly rivals some others, like when a male member of the group is seduced for sex by a female member of the group while sitting on the toilet in the cold outhouse.<\/p>\n

Enough splatters of blood exist to forget how silly the Nazi soldiers look. But the makeup and creative team do a superior job of making the zombies look horrific too. In particular, their leader, Colonel Herzog, is a combination of sexy and hideous.<\/p>\n

The international quality and the Norwegian language require subtitles, but that is no problem for me. This brings sophistication and intelligence that I appreciate, raising the film above the mediocrity that it may have suffered from had it been an American release.<\/p>\n

The foreign lands add mystique.<\/p>\n

Dead Snow, at one hour and thirty minutes, is short enough not to wear out its welcome, which it starts to do in the final fifteen minutes or so.<\/p>\n

A chase scene across the snowy mountains and motivation for some ancient gold coins are explained as the final character makes it to safety in an until then missing car.<\/p>\n

Or do they?<\/p>\n

Providing some fun without taking itself too seriously, Dead Snow (2009) contains no message nor any marquee stars.<\/p>\n

Making Nazis the evil ones is no stretch, so there is immediately enough rooting value to forgive some of the students for their idiotic decisions.<\/p>\n

It’s a bloody fun time but not much more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dead Snow-2009 Director Tommy Wirkola Starring Vegar Hoel, Stig Frode Henriksen Scott’s Review #1,237 Reviewed March 12, 2022 Grade: B First off, the cover art (pictured above) of the 2009 Norwegian horror-comedy film Dead Snow is simply incredible. The creepy Nazi head embedded in the snow with a background chainsaw is perfect marketing and genuinely … Continue reading Dead Snow-2009<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308,49,13,246,35,263,2740,207,11658,11744,402],"tags":[12278,12282,12283,12281,12284,12279,8374,12280],"class_list":["post-15972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2009-movie-reviews","category-comedies","category-horror-films","category-horror-comedies","category-foreignfilms","category-foreign-horror","category-norwegian","category-satires","category-winter","category-world-war-ii","category-horror-zombie","tag-charlotte-frogner","tag-evy-kasseth-rosten","tag-jenny-skavlan","tag-jeppe-laursen","tag-lasse-valdal","tag-stig-frode-henriksen","tag-tommy-wirkola","tag-vegar-hoel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15972"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23965,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15972\/revisions\/23965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}