Død snø [Dead Snow] (2009)

(In French, On Cable TV, May 2022) The first Dead Snow has an interesting place in pop culture history, helping bring about a new wave of Nazi zombie films and videogames. I’m not calling it the root of the sub-sub-genre (with a decades’ worth of zombie films by the end of the 2000s, someone was bound to put Nazis + Zombies together, and many did so at the same time) but it was reasonably popular and played into a wider trend. Alas, finally seeing it thirteen years later, I was disappointed by the result. Clearly put together on a small budget by writer-director Tommy Wirkola, the film struggles at first: the tone is an uneven mixture of comedy, horror and clichés as a few college students go to an isolated cabin for a weekend of snowy fun and then get attacked by undead Nazis. While the film whips itself up to some good old-fashioned zombie splatter, it doesn’t have full control over its tone. It doesn’t feel like a horror comedy like its obvious Evil Dead inspiration — it feels like a gory horror film with moments of comedy, and those are different things. This can be seen all the way to the ending, which takes a very easy way out that may leave viewers wondering if it was all worth it. As a result, the film struggles to keep audiences invested beyond the most obvious elements – since its characters are expendable, little effort is made to distinguish them beyond blunt distinctions. Elements of the execution are well-handled: cinematography and special effects make this a well-crafted film despite its weaknesses. But it should have been much better. [June 2022: The sequel is fortunately much better.]