Dead Snow (Død snø)

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.