DEAD SNOW & My Zombie Guilt Struggles
Have you ever found yourself watching a zombie movie and feeling a little bad for the zombies? Maybe you’ve mastered the skill of hardhearted toughness when it comes to zombies, but I haven’t. I mean, it's not their fault. They were turned into zombies by other zombies. In fact, they were probably running away from those zombies seconds before being turned specifically because they did not want to be turned into zombies. Face it! This is not the life those poor saps chose for themselves. My heart breaks for them. They were once people just like you and me. They had loved ones, hated jobs, favorite nacho toppings, homes, bills to pay, sexual frustrations, and all the rest of the murky hodgepodge which makes up being human.
At the end of the day, this is not a tenable situation. You simply cannot have great gore flicks where you feel bad for the antagonists. A little bad is okay. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy a good sobby back story? However, in the present tense of the story, it just does not serve to feel bad for zombies and their homicidal eating disorder.
Well, the 2009 Norwegian film Dead Snow has the cure for all my wishy washy, mamby pamby zombie-hugging inclinations. NAZI ZOMBIES! That’s right, Nazi Zombies. These jerks weren't infected by any viral zombi-ism. They didn’t inhale the wrong green smoke from a canister in a Dan O'Bannon movie. No, they were cursed into becoming zombies by their greed, cruelty, and basic fundamental Nazi-ness. And since I don’t see any Goebbels or Himmler zombies running around, you KNOW these guys were bad... even for Nazis. There you go! Thanks to this simple narrative device, I can finally enjoy the bloody gore fest of slaughtering zombies guilt free. A tip of the hat and a warm thank you to the fine people of the Kingdom of Norway!
To be fair, beyond the plot device and the personal catharsis, the film offers little new for zombie aficionados. What it does offer, however, works well. Much of the film is a collection of tried and true zombie tropes. It's a bit like painting by numbers. If you’re someone who enjoys the splatter and spills the genre has to offer, you’ll find this film thoroughly satisfying. It's funny when it needs to be, scary and gory when called for, and campy but restrained.
One place the film feels especially fresh is with the origins story. For decades now, we have been inundated by zombies created by worldly means, whether viruses or some sort of smoking chemical compound manufactured by an evil military-industrial entity. These days it is easy to forget zombies weren’t originally the provenance of science fiction. Zombies have a rich cultural heritage going back centuries, but more recently they entered Western pop culture from stories about Haitian voodoo where they are created by magic. Dead Snow re-appropriates this tradition and ties it to stories of Nazi occultism. This narrative move shows, in my humble opinion, that the ground is fertile to return to the magical and ritual dimension of zombies. There is a lot of unexplored territory there.
I could say plenty about the technicals of the film. Tommy Wirkola and Stig Frode Henriksen’s script strikes the right balance. It doesn’t pretend to be Shakespeare, but it is also not a slap dash shallow piece of work. They took the time to actually explore and work with the archetypes of zombie horror films. The action sequences are well choreographed and enjoyable to watch. The special effects were well done, delivering the gore zombie-lovers look for. The acting is good. The cast knew just when to play it like those classic, dumb hedonistic teens who "deserve death". But they also knew when to play it straight and make you empathize for their plight and suffering.
If you like zombies, hate Nazis, and root for gore - then this movie is probably a good choice for you. Enjoy!
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