Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead ★★★★

I LOVE Dead Snow 2; it’s as simple as that.

The original 2009 Norwegian film, Dead Snow , is similar to Evil Dead in that it’s an unrelentingly intense horror experience.

But, like that classic horror’s film’s sequel, Dead Snow 2 (2014) is absolutely played for laughs.

It’s so insanely over-the-top and hilariously gory that you can’t help going along for the ride. The first time I saw it was with a horror audience at a late night cinema screening and the crowd went wild.

Having said all that, if you don’t like gore then you will not like one of the funniest films of recent years. It has a lot of gore and it’s very inventively used. I’ll give you an example later, but suffice to say the humour is jet black with children and pensioners among the victims.

In the first film a group of friends took a winter break at a cabin in the woods. They found a chest of gold coins stolen by the occupying Nazis during World War II. Unfortunately, the act awakens the dead Nazis and they return to re-claim their spoils.

The sequel starts immediately from the end of the first film, but you quickly realise it’s going to be a comedy.

Survivor Martin is minus one arm when he arrives unconscious at the hospital. Thankfully the surgeons found his severed arm in his car and managed to re-attach it. Problem is that isn’t his arm; it belonged to the Nazi zombie commandant whose extra angry because the arm has supernatural powers.

So, Martin now has an arm he can’t control and a battalion of zombie Nazis, now also armed with a tank, on his tail for not just the super arm but also vengeance against an entire town. At the same time, police think evidence from the first film’s killings point to Martin being a mass murderer and they are after him too.

Along the way he gets help from a trio self-styled amateur zombie killers who basically have to learn their craft and tactics as they go along.

The sub-plot with the ‘zombie squad’ is the lamest part of the film, but otherwise it’s a roller-coaster of gory laughs.

Just one example: The Nazi zombies attack a bunch of tourists alighting from a bus in the car park of a war museum. Apart from killing all of them, the zombies need petrol for their tank so decide to syphon it from the bus…using somebody’s intestines.

There are some great practical effects and makeup and all the cast treat the proceedings in the manner intended, i.e. horrified but with tongues firmly in cheeks.

Of particular note are Vegar Hoel as the hapless Martin, Hallvard Holem as a clueless, sexist police chief and Kristoffer Joner as a re-animated zombie sidekick who gets car sick when he has to sit in the back.

The director of both films, Tommy Wirkola, and his co-writer and lead actor Hoel have a great feeling for the material and use the beautiful locations in Iceland and Norway to great effect, particularly the site for the Soviet army burial ground and the backdrop for the final ‘Braveheart-like’ battle.

If you like horror comedies, this is one of the best.