Intestines and You

From past reviews, you would notice that two of the last three were about zombies.  I have no idea why that’s the case, but we may as well go with it.  After this review, it will be three out of four.  I do find myself now categorizing zombie films specific to the types of zombies and the perspective of the main characters.  Dead Snow (Død snø) is a film that encompasses everything that is right with film.  On a scholarly level it is a self aware film that revels in its homages to the genre.  On an entirely different level, holy shit it has Nazi zombies, hot chicks, and an intestine fetish.

The plot is fairly easy to describe, group of thirty-somethings go for vacation in an isolate snowy area that is being patrolled by undead zombies.  Hilarity ensues.  The group is made up of grad students on vacation, except Sara (Ane Dahl Torp) who decides to ski to the cabin rather than ride in a car along with the rest of them.  I guess skiing to the vacation destination makes sense in the context of location, but I knew she was dead from the start.  The rest act like grad students on vacation with some alcohol and bad jokes.  We learn from a gruff traveler Hertzog (Ørjan Gamst), that the area was home to evil Nazis that stole and killed the people and then ran to the hills after the war to hide their spoils.  No one saw them again, except there have been reports of those Nazis still roaming the woods.  I’m really not sure what else you would need to know except that the hottest actress (Jenny Skavlan) in the film has sex with the overweight film geek in an outhouse right after he has announced to the group how big a shit he has to take.  Mild disgust to involuntary gagging should be overtaking you at this point.  However, it’s the little things like this that make Dead Snow such a fun film to watch.

How in the hell is sex in an outhouse reflective of a fun film?  Mainly because it demonstrates the key factor in making Dead Snow worthwhile, it is self-aware.  While not a parody or even satire, the film recognizes that zombie and horror films have been using the same conventions over and over again.  Why not take those conventions and simply announce that the film will be following them while still playing around a bit.  In the vein of such films as the Evil Dead films, the humor comes from the tweaking of those conventions rather than anything being funny.  When the group first treks to the mountain cabin, the film geek Erland (Jeppe Beck Laursen) wonders just how many horror films begin with a group of people going to an isolate cabin.  Erland provides even more film references and quotes throughout the film, which are typically timely and add to the humor of a particular scene.  The film is not funny because it tries to be funny, it’s humorous because of the slight variations of conventions.  It does play like a straight horror film, but the self-aware nature creates a multi-layered romp through the zombie genre.

Then there is the obsession with intestines.  Dead Snow is certainly not for the weak of stomach.  While you are given the typical gore of a zombie film, you are also given so much more.  The end of the film is an entire smorgasbord of ways to kill zombies and cause as much blood to spread as possible.  Cut-off hand and various impalements later, the snow becomes a blank canvas for the Jackson Pollock-esque blood splatter.  No problem you say, I can handle blood and gore.  How about various scenes that involve the repeated focus on intestines.  How about catching your intestines on a tree branch?  Ever use an intestines as a climbing rope?  Motif, yes.  Disturbing repetition of intestines, hell yes.  We even get a discussion on how you can be alive and still watch your intestines being ripped out.  Which then actually happens.  I’m not sure if you can have your intestines ache, but I certainly am now more aware of the possible ways in which intestines could get me killed or saved.

Dead Snow gives viewers a fun trip into zombie filled woods where intestines abound and conventions become vehicles for humor.  While not being a particularly great film, it does vault itself beyond a bad film.  Or is it that the film is trying to be bad and therefore becomes a very good postmodern zombie film?  I think I will leave that up to you.  If you like zombie films (which apparently I do since I have now began classifying sub-genres of zombie films), you will find this fun and a less than serious stab at the genre.  If you do not like zombie films, go watch something else.  Not only will you be disturbed by the many uses for the intestines, the self-awareness will not make much sense.  Director Tommy Wirkola demonstrates his love of film and his ability to create a film that really could have been just another zombie film and takes it one step further.  He even names a character Hertzog, but that  in itself demonstrates why my enthusiasm for this film is a bit tarnished.  The same thing that makes the film watchable (being self-aware), can certainly come off as a bit of the egotistical film geek making a film vibe.  Future films by Wirkola will certainly prove which it actually was.