Movie Review: Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead

A brief review of Dead Snow is available here.

There were very few surprises in Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead, and that's one of the film's greatest strengths.  At least as gory as its predecessor and a lot funnier, it's a sequel that didn't have to be made, but I'm glad it was.  Horror comedy often goes terribly wrong, veering into bland, unfunny spectacle, but it did not happen here.  Between a hysterical script and some very inspired physical comedy, it's a fun movie all on its own.

• The Cast: Vegar Hoel returned as Martin, who survived Dead Snow and ended up getting his arch-enemy Herzog's arm grafted to his stump.  The transplanted limb has a life (or unlife) all its own, and creates not only some hysterical moments, but important plot advancement. The film's writer, Stig Frode Henriksen has a great role as Martin's reluctant friend/assistant, and Hallvard Holmen was very funny as an entirely incompetent cop.  
• Zombie Squad: Three members of the Zombie Squad arrive in the nick of time to help Martin deal with Herzog's new invasion of Norway.  The writers handled them deftly, making them funny but not (too) pathetic.  
• Language: It's going to mark me as unsophisticated and provincial, but I appreciated that the movie was filmed in English.  Reading subtitles tends to take me out of the experience and divides my attention, so that didn't happen for me here.  
• Gore: It's all here.  More intestine jokes, more blood, more disgusting scenes across the board.  It doesn't let up.  Ever.  Some parts, even the funny ones, were a little hard to watch.
• The End: There's a scene at the end that had me saying, "No, stop it, this shouldn't be happening, just stop, stop, stop."  Few movies can do that to me.

If you like funny, gross-out zombie movies, you'll love Dead Snow 2.  Four out of five stars.

A Trio of Brief Horror Movie Reviews

Yesterday I was struck down with norovirus.  Every terrible symptom that comes with this illness played havoc with my body in ways Tomás de Torquemada would learn from (and be disgusted by).  So, when wracked with agonies, what can you do except watch horror movies on Netflix?

These reviews have spoilers in them.

The first one I watched was Dead Snow.  It's a testament to how desensitized I've become watching horror films that the unbelievable amounts of gore in it did not cause me to run to the bathroom, vomiting down my shirtfront.  I was doing that anyway.  Despite that it was subtitled, a lot of the dialogue worked.  There were some memorable moments: Erlend's end, the one guy whose name I never learned sewing his spurting neck wound closed, rappelling with intestines, and Martin getting his peepee bitten by a nuthunting zombie after having sawed his own arm off to prevent infection.  If you like gory, foreign, funny zombie films with people named Vegard, Turgåer, and Erlend in them, this is the movie for you.  4 out of 5 stars.

After an attempt at a nap during a particularly bad wave of nausea, I turned on The Taking of Deborah Logan, mostly because it was the first movie recommended in the list and I felt too awful to think about picking something different.  Overall, it wasn't bad, but it had little to recommend it.  The problem with this film and the one I watched after it was the same: the characters were mostly unlikable from the beginning to the end and I didn't care what happened to them.  Except for the kid, because, well, it was a kid.  With cancer.  The creepy bit with Deborah Logan sort of opening her face near the end and swallowing the kid's head was effective.  The old lady T-and-A was unusual.  I'm trying to find things to say about this movie, but can't, which shows you how unmemorable it was.  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good, either.  2 out of 5 stars.

Terrorphoria's post on the movie You're Next had intrigued me, so as I lay on the sofa, trying not to writhe in agony from muscle cramps and gut spasms, I put it on.  People who know about movies, especially horror movies, call it "mumblegore" and I don't give enough of a damn to Google the term to find out what mumblegore is or what other films exist in the mumblegore oeuvre.  I assume it has nothing to do with Harry Potter.  In it, a bunch of people who are absolute putzes get attacked by men in animal masks.  One person has the wherewithal to fight back, and she does, killing all the bad guys because that's just what women do in violent situations: they use their brawn, innate brutality, and hardcore fighting skills to defeat trained soldiers in hand-to-hand combat.  Yes, I know she spent time on a survivalist compound, whatever that means.  In any event, there were some funny moments to it, and some disturbing ones, but the filmmakers didn't care enough about the viewers to put forth enough effort to make us care about what was happening.  It was just an exercise in brutality.  3 out of 5 stars.  One of those stars is because Barbara Crampton was in it.