tommy wirkola – Horror Ghouls

Dead Snow 2 (also known as Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead) starts where the previous film left off, at full speed, where the only survivor, Martin (Geir Vegar Hoel), with an arm less due to cutting it off with a chainsaw after he got bitten. Things doesn’t look too good and when he thought that he’d come to peace with the zombies by giving them their precious box of gold, he forgot to add a golden coin which he had in his pocket. And of course, it isn’t over until Herzog claims that gold and has killed the last body count.

Things get more messy when Herzog attacks Martin’s car, which escalates with a truck that rips off Herzog’s arm that falls into the car with Martin. After it all ends with a car crash, Martin gets brought to the hospital where things get even more fucked-up. Because when he wakes up, the doctors have stitched together Herzog’s arm into his freshly sawed-off limb. Doesn’t sound too bad at first, but it turns out that the arm is something straight from Evil Dead II. But along comes an upgrade with some superpowers, which he has to learn to control.

Things are still pretty normal so far, but it gets out of control when Martin accidentally kills one of the patients, who’s a young kid. Yes, children gets killed here. Not just one, but a few. Oh my. All from kids playing in a sandbox to toddlers in their strollers. So be sure to have the whambulance ready on speed dial.

Anyway, now that Martin is in the deepest shit, with not only Nazi zombies on his tail, he’s now the number-one suspect in the country for killing his friends in the mountains. Martin needs some assistants to get out of this mess, and quickly. The kid he accidentally killed some moments ago told him something about a trio of zombie hunters, called Zombie Squad, from the USA. This group is led by Daniel (played by the Freaks and Geeks actor Martin Starr). With him, he has the two most annoying Star Wars nerds that think every snowy mountain in Norway is the filming location of Hoth. Huh, well, someone has to tell them that Dead Snow 2 was actually filmed in Iceland, for whatever reason.

More blood, more guts, more violence, more action, more plot, more fun, more evil Nazi motherfuckers, more insanity and other surprises is what to expect from Dead Snow 2. And this time Herzog also has a tank which he don’t waste any time to use. BANG!!!

Dead Snow 2 is a sequel done right on every level which surpasses the original like a sledgehammer. The film is also rich on locations where the distinct mountain landscapes of Iceland makes a grim and majestic appearance in its one unique way, even though it’s all supposed to take place in Norway. Alongside with the Zombie Squad, we have some new characters to join the epic journey to the final battle of Herzog and his army. The humor is also amped up with more gallow with a tone far more absurd and wacky than the first one, where Troma meets the early works of Peter Jackson. And it all works great like a slippery dick in a pussy, or like kuk i fitte, as we say in Norwegian. We also have some really fun kills where all from old folks in wheelchairs to kids, gays, and priests aren’t safe, and some brutal home invasion scenes. And without spoiling, unlike the trailer, there’s also a nice and inventive homage to The Return of The King here that fits perfectly. Even though the snow itself seems to have melted, it’s as fun, epic and wild as it can be. Skål, cheers and Sieg Heil!

According to Tommy Wirkola, the script for Dead Snow 3 has already been written years ago where there’s a hint of bringing Hitler himself to the surface. The sad thing is that actor Geir Vegar Hoel, who also worked as co-writer for this one, died in 2020 of cancer at age 47. RIP. How his passing will affect the rest of the franchise remains to be seen and now that it has already gone ten years since the release of this film, it seems more unlikely a third installment will happen. We can hope.

Both films are available on DVD/Blu-ray on the international market and can be dug up from Cd Universe and Amazon. And guess what: they’re also on Tubi!

Director: Tommy Wirkola
Writers: Tommy Wirkola, Geir Vegar Hoel, Stig Frode Henriksen
Original title: Død Snø 2
Country & year: Iceland, Norway, 2014
Actors: Geir Vegar Hoel, Ørjan Gamst, Martin Starr, Jocelyn DeBoer, Ingrid Haas, Stig Frode Henriksen, Hallvard Holmen, Kristoffer Joner, Amrita Acharia, Derek Mears, Bjarte Tjøstheim
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2832470/

Prequel: Dead Snow (2009)

First off, here’s a drinking game: Take a great shot of karsk for each time Norway/Norwegian is mentioned in this review. Now – Just like Cold Prey, we have Dead Snow, which was also a big deal upon its release back in 2009. Because of this one, we now had our first Norwegian zombie movie to finally show off, with Nazis even. And a lot of red, blood-soaked snow while the Easter sun is shining bright. Another note for the Norwegian film history books. Dead Snow became a hit at the Sundance festival that kick-started the fruitful career of Tommy Wirkola, who’s since made several films in Hollywood – most notably the Christmas action/horror flick Violent Night (2022) with John Harbour in the main role.

Dead Snow opens appropriately enough with Edward Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King, as someone is getting chased in the mountain forest and killed by a group of, yes you guessed it, zombies. Zombies in Norway, you say? Huh, that was new. Thought they only had trolls, gnomes and brunost. Yes, but these aren’t Norwegian zombies, you see, so get ready for an upcoming history lesson. After this short and quick adrenaline-filled opening, we meet our group of body-counts/friends of four medical students who are on their way to a mountain cabin in Øksfjord, far up in the northern countryside to celebrate Easter, get drunk on beer and moonshine, party hard and the luckiest ones gets to fuck in the shithouse.

The party mode gets put on hold for a minute when our group of friends gets an unexpected visit from a hiker. And this guy has seen some dark shit, for sure, his face can tell. He gives them a history lesson of the notorious Nazi colonel Herzog, who with his death squad team occupied the area during WW2. They did gruesome things to the locals over a span of three years, and as our hiker says in his beautiful northern dialect:

Det hær va nånn onde SATANS jævla! Wich is best translated as: They were some EVIL motherfuckers!

To cut his story short: Herzog and co. stole a dose of valuables when the war was over and tried to escape over the mountains where they seemed to disappear. Legend says that they froze to death and there’s an evil lurking over the place that must not be awakened. Yeah, whatever. They only scoff at him and don’t think much of it afterward, because who in the right mind would. So, who wants another beer? It isn’t until they find some hidden old valuables and gold in the cabin crawlspace that the plot starts to thicken. Because, guess who also wants to claim that gold, other than the Leprechaun.

Nazi zombies aren’t something new, nor was it with Dead Snow. We can actually rewind all the way back to the 1940s and dig up the corpses of King of the Zombies and Revenge of the Zombies and the terrible cult-schlock from 1981 that is Jean Rollin’s Zombie Lake, and more. But, of course, in a cold, winter-filled Norwegian setting, this was something we never thought we’d see on a big screen. Especially considering that a film like this would have been completely banned in a gnome country like this, or at least cut to pieces to the unrecognizable if it was made in the VHS era.

The effects are nice and juicy and the film goes full-out with the carnage and what they had in the gore-department. Eyes get poked out in Fulci-style, heads ripped in half, bodies ripped to shreds, people hanging from someone’s fresh ripped-out intestines from a cliff as they fight zombies, some general hack and slashing and its list of references. And of course, we have some glorious chainsaw action. Approx 400 liters of fake blood was used here. Not too shabby for being the first Norwegian zombie movie.

It’s all done with a dose of humor with a great group of actors in some very likable roles. My favorite is Bjørn Sundquist, one of the finest legacy actors we have in Norway. His screentime is short but none other than him would be able to tell the backstory of Herzog in such a serious deadpan manner like he did. However, some of the humor may not land as much on the non-Norwegian audience, especially the classic scene towards the end with the tunes and lyrics of Åge Alexandersen’s Min Dag.

It also shows that this is an early film of a newcomer. It’s of course a big step forward after Wirkola’s debut with Kill Buljo in technical terms. The pacing keeps a steady track, it’s overall fun and entertaining with a lot of energy and some great use of nature scenery. But still, there are some rough edges here. Some choppy and clunky editing choices prevent some of the death scenes to shine and breathe, and the ending gives the impression that the budget just said stop. If Tommy Wirkola already had the sequel in mind, I don’t know, but Dead Snow 2, which came five years later, surely makes this more of a warm-up, or a vorspiel, as we usually say in Norway before the big party. Så det e bare for dåkk kjære hæstkuka å håll sprit’n klar.

Director: Tommy Wirkola
Writers: Tommy Wirkola, Stig Frode Henriksen
Original title: Død Snø
Country & year: Norway, 2009
Actors: Geir Vegar Hoel, Stig Frode Henriksen, Charlotte Frogner, Lasse Valdal, Evy Kasseth Røsten, Jeppe Beck Laursen, Jenny Skavlan, Ane Dahl Torp, Bjørn Sundquist, Ørjan Gamst
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1278340/

Sequel: Dead Snow 2 (2014)

Tag: tommy wirkola

Dead Snow 2 (2014)

Dead Snow (2009)