Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror comedy from 2009. That movie is "Dead Snow".
So, similar to a few other genres of film that I haven't covered in a while, movies about zombies are another one on that list. And there is kind of a reason as to why. The main reason being that I'm still sick and tired of zombies, even after all this time. And I probably should be over that fad by this point, but you should also understand that, in case you weren't around then, zombies were fucking everywhere around the early 2010's. I would say it probably started around 2010, and the fad for them died around the middle of 2014. Mind you, that is just an estimated guess, but my point still stands. Zombies aren't really something that I'm all excited for, especially films involving them.
So, exactly why now am I covering this thing? Well, as much as I'm not really that big a fan of zombie movies, I do enjoy horror comedies, as long as they're funny, anyway. And I've heard a lot of good things about this movie. Now as for what I know about it, all I can tell you is that it involves Nazi zombies. Which sounds pretty cool. I mean, hey, if you're gonna do a zombie film, why not include Nazi's and make them zombies as well? It sounds really promising on paper.
So, I'm hoping for this thing to be as great as from what I've heard about it. Of course, I have been proven wrong before from people who say that a movie's great, and when I eventually watched this supposed great movie...it really wasn't that great. But still, I am holding out hopes for this one on being great. And the only way I'm gonna find out if it is great at all, is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Dead Snow".
14 minutes later
So, Martin was suffocating his girlfriend with a pillow...and I'm not totally why he was doing that. I mean, he didn't have any real malicious intent, as he was obviously joking, but I'm still not totally sure why he did that to begin with. I could maybe understand if this was part of his training on wanting to become a doctor, but no, at least not as far as I could see, anyway.
14 minutes later
You know, guys, I'm *really* liking the amount of tension that's being built up in this movie. It's actually doing it in a way in which I honestly can't wait to see what happens next!
8 minutes later
So, all of our characters are messing around with the gold that the movie nerd found. Yet, also earlier, it was Martin who suggested to keep the gold inside the wooden box until Vegarde finds Sara. My guess is that they all got tired of waiting, or they're currently busy being drunk to not care about that rule. Either way, I guess Martin's suggestion didn't really matter much, now did it?
12 minutes later
Well, damn, that kill looked rather brutal, as one of our Nazi zombies crushed the guy's head off like a melon! That was pretty cool, I must say.
11 minutes later
You know, I never thought I'd ever say this about a zombie anything, but that's probably the first and only time I've ever seen someone hanging from a cliff by holding onto a Nazi zombie's intestines as rope. That's actually really creative, and I don't think I would've ever came up with something like that myself.
7 minutes later
OK, that was probably the shittiest-fucking throw I have ever seen in almost any movie ever. That's gotta be a record for something, right? Because, I'm having a hard time trying to think up of any other instance where something like that might've happened, but no, I can't think of anything. So yeah, I can say that was probably the worst throw ever.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Dead Snow" Let me go ahead and shut the film off here...OK. Well, I gotta say that, after finally getting a chance to watch this thing, I'm actually kinda surprised. I had heard good things about it, sure, but I still wanted to lower my expectations a bit, considering that I somewhat hate it when someone hypes up a movie so much to a point where it either doesn't live up to it, or it just flat out sucks. Well, I can say that the movie is actually pretty good for the most part. Mind you, it isn't a great movie, but I will get into all of that in a second here.
Right now, though, I may as well just start things off by talking about the writing here. And the first thing I want to talk about is the movie's humor. Now, as I said earlier, this thing is suppose to be a horror comedy about Nazi zombies. And I'm totally cool with that, as long as you do something interesting with it while also being funny at the same time. And it certainly does have it's hilarious moments. However, I feel as if this movie doesn't really lean too much into the comedy here. Now let me reiterate again by stating that the movie *is* certainly really funny. But most of the comedy in this movie doesn't really kick in up until the last half hour of the movie or so. For the most part, the movie tries to play it up as straight as possible. Now perhaps maybe I'm somehow misinterpreting in someway. Maybe it's because that it's trying to play itself up as being straight up that it somehow makes the whole movie even funnier. Which, it *could* be possible, and perhaps maybe if I watch this thing a second or third time, I might be able to see more of the comedy that's missing here. But as it is, most of that is, like I already said, regulated into the last half hour of the film. Which is a bit too long, if you ask me.
Speaking of which, let's get into the second problem that this movie suffers from, which is the pacing. This movie has a bit of a slow boil going on. And for, like, the first 40 minutes or so, nothing really much happens here. We got about a couple of kills here and there, but they're very spaced out. We also get exposition about the Nazi's from this old guy who appears one time in the movie, and completely disappears afterwards to never be seen again. And aside from that, most of that is just our characters messing around inside their cabin. Which isn't really all that interesting to be perfectly honest here. And the fact it took a little over 40 minutes for the movie to get interesting is what sorta dampers the film a bit. Now I will say that after the first 40 minutes goes on by, the movie actually does start to really pick up from there. It's just you have to have a bit of patience with the first 40 minutes of film if you want to get into the more interesting stuff afterwards.
Our characters aren't really all that interesting, personality wise. I honestly couldn't even remember half of the characters names, because most of them are that forgettable. The only one that I can remember by name is Martin, who's also the only character I can remember as well, since he's the guy who wants to become a doctor. The only quirk though is that he's afraid of blood. Which is sorta laughable, because later on in the film, you can see that his entire face is almost covered in blood. Which makes the whole thing about him fearing blood rather irrelevant. But then again, from a narrative perspective, I think it kinda makes sense, considering the whole Nazi zombies and everything going on. So, I can at least grant that to his character. Our Nazi zombies are also devoid of personality, but then again, they *are* Nazi zombies, so I can give them a pass on this one.
Overall, guys, the writing here is pretty good, when it wants to get going. It's just certain things here and there, such as the pacing being a bit slow, and the comedy not really happening until the last half hour so of the movie, that ultimately stops it from being great. But with that said, let's actually get into the acting here. Now, I do have to confess something. Originally, I first started watching the movie with it's original Norwegian dub, however, I did notice on the back of the DVD case that it does have the option to watch it with an English dub. So, I opted to watch that instead, because I wasn't really all that interested in watching it in it's original language. And I will say that the dub here is halfway decent. There are a couple of instances of phoned in acting that happen, mostly from whoever they got to dub over Martin's dialogue here. That said, though, he still did an OK job with the material that he was given to work with. Everyone else did a pretty good job, too. Now while I obviously can't judge the Norwegian acting here, since I watched very little of it before I switched to the English dub, I can tell from their body language that they looked like they had a lot of fun in this movie, so I can at least grant them that. Overall, guys, the English dub is OK for what it is, though the option for the original Norwegian dub is also available too, just in case.
Special effects here are great, especially for low budget standards. The blood effects are great, along with the gore here as well. There are small instances of CG blood used as well, however, given that it closely resembles the practical blood effects, you won't really notice them all that much, if at all. So, this is one of those rare instances where I can accept the CG blood for what it is. The makeup effects on our Nazi zombies all look great, along with the costuming as well. All of it here is great, and given the low budget, they definitely used it to their advantage here.
Camerawork here is really good. The lighting here is great. But then again, most of this movie took place outdoors, so I would expect the lighting here to be great just based on that fact alone. Sound-mix here is mixed fine. The music here actually consists of Norwegian rock music. Now obviously, I haven't really listened to a whole lot of Norwegian rock music. In fact, this is my first time hearing it in this movie. But I will say that it actually does sound pretty good. Maybe I'll give the soundtrack more of a listen to at some point, but I can, again, say that what is hear is pretty good, so I can give the music here a plus for this movie.
Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Dead Snow"? Yes, I most certainly can. If, once again, provided that you're able to overlook the somewhat slow pacing of the first 40 minutes or so, along with the comedy portion of the movie not happening until the last half hour or so as well. But other than that, this is a rather good effort. I'm probably gonna be watching this again at some point. I don't know if it's something I would watch as a yearly tradition around Christmas time, but it is still definitely worth checking out, if at least once. So yeah, I can totally recommend "Dead Snow" to you guys. It's not a great horror comedy, but still worth checking out in my book. And speaking of horror comedies, I'm gonna go and re-pop in my copy of "Dead & Breakfast", since that, to me, is a great horror comedy involving zombies.
And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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