My fear of horror films and what they may hold doesn’t come from any sort of bad experience or frightening moment. As a kid, I’d merely heard of Freddy Kreuger or Paranormal Activity and had been scared senseless. I was a child, impressionable and easily scared by the slightest of things. I remember Dead Snow; a friend had shown me a clip of it when I went over his house and my immediate reaction was to cry. I wasn’t expecting the same reaction from the film when I actually watched it for the first time a decade on, but I had at least expected some fascinating moments that would give me an insight into what had scared me as a child.
Presumably, the popularity of this film in my group of friends was the release of Call of Duty: World at War. A weird comparison to make, an exceptional stretch of the imagination, but our childhood obsession with the zombie mode in that game seemingly made films like Dead Snow the holy grail of cinema. I hate to disappoint myself or to puncture my nostalgia, but Dead Snow is tremendously mediocre, no wonder I found the clips so enthralling as a child, my brain hadn’t developed back then. Many would argue it has yet to do so.
It’s rather by the books, a sprinkling of interest given the setting of the film being in the snowy mountains of Norway, but other than that it’s more or less your typical slasher zombie flick. Not too many interesting kills, nor are there any characters that feel wholly likeable. I suppose that is the point to some extent, to have likeable characters would make an audience feel attached, and that’s not really sought after when most of the cast are to be killed off in various moments of panic. There are pockets throughout that do strike me as funny, but inconsistency reigns supreme, and there are moments that feel rather boring littered throughout. For every decent quip or cheap scare, there are plodding moments of build-up, various basic, primitive character arcs and direction that tries to appeal to the Shaun of the Dead or Evil Dead fan.
Quick-cut editing, I assume made in endearing tribute to those aforementioned films, is utilised infrequently throughout. Meant as a wry little nod to influences of the past, they come across as smug and just a little redundant. They don’t exactly reinvent the wheel, but they don’t come across as competent either. In fact, the direction, on the whole, is problematic, with Tommy Wirkola throwing in an inconsistent flurry of ideas, blending the good ones and the bad ones together without care. A great concept, taking the traditional zombie format and blending it with Nazis, snowy exteriors and draugr legends, but never fleshing it out in a way that feels wholly engaging.
Dead Snow has its moments, and it’ll sit well with those looking for some light, gory comedy. Its funny moments are few and far between, the alternatives to this piece from Wirkola and his cast are far better than the efforts present here. It all becomes a bit futile, the films and inspirations they look to mock, satirise or parody are all leagues above Dead Snow in both conventional horror and genre-busting fun.
