Dead Snow (Død snø)

Paste Rating

5.3

respectable

Your Rating

0.0

Release Date: June 19 (limited)

Director: Tommy Wirkola

Writers: Stig Frode Henriksen, Tommy Wirkola

Cinematographer: Matthew Weston

Starring: Ørjan Gamst, Stig Frode Henriksen, Vegar Hoel

Studio/Run Time: IFC, 91 mins.

Nazi zombies in Norway!

Dead Snow is one of many Norwegian horror flicks that takes place amid endless, snow-cloaked mountains, a hint at some national anxiety we don’t quite understand. The film’s plot, on the other hand, could not be more universal: It follows vacationers terrorized by Nazi zombies.

Yep, actual Nazis, exiled after World War II and now reanimated with a slightly different kind of hunger for human flesh. It’s hyperbolic evil taken to a new extreme: Skulls and limbs are decimated, and there’s a zealous fixation on human intestines. Alas, co-writer/director Tommy Wirkola can’t resist the urge to make the mordant comedy implicit in these movies more literal than it should be. A midnight selection at Sundance this year, Dead Snow boasts a surprising technical expertise that will placate genre devotees, but the lame play for laughs diffuses the movie’s momentum without any real upside for the viewer.

Watch the trailer for Dead Snow: