Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead - A beautifully politically incorrect sequel

Despite being a zombie fan, it took me a couple of viewings to appreciate the original ‘Dead Snow.’ But it grew on me (and now I own it on DVD).  I was delighted when I heard a sequel was out and watched it straight away.  I have to say I didn’t like this one either at first, but, whereas the original took a couple of viewings to ‘get,’ I started to like its sequel at around the half hour mark.

The original Dead Snow was a ‘condensed little number.’ It was about a group of friends who took a skiing holiday to a remote cabin (hardly original, eh?) where they interrupt a load of Nazi zombies.  Naturally, blood and guts follow.  So, instead of retreading the original, the film-makers choose to expand the whole story on a bigger picture.  We’re given more information on the Nazis zombies.  Who’d have thought evil undead killers have such a rich and diverse back-story?!  But they do!  Plus we have a whole new cast of characters on hand to help out the lone survivor of the initial encounter.

And the characters are fun.  The police on the trail of the undead carnage is pretty inept and quite amusing.  Our leftover hero is nicely psychotic and damaged after his previous ordeal, but what makes the film is how the writers have added all sorts of nice new aspects to what could just be another zombie movie.  There are so many movies out there like this these days that anything that wants to stand out has to cover new ground.  And I’m glad to say this one does.  I won’t list too many of its original nice touches, but my favourite aspect was how the hero’s arm god severed and the hospital had to reattach it.  Only they messed up and accidentally stitched on the main zombie’s arm, hence unwittingly giving our hero a few new powers of his own.

You will need to have a pretty dark sense of humour to watch this.  There are so many politically incorrect moments that break conventions.  A black sense of humour is a must here.  Plus there’s a fair bit of action towards the end.  Off the top of my head I’d have to say that ‘Dead Snow2’ contains the longest ongoing climactic battle I’ve seen in a zombie film.

You should be aware that the film is shot in both Norwegian and English, so you’ll find you’re reading the subtitles one minute, only to realise you’re listening to English the next.

The only criticisms I have would be that it does feel a little ‘all over the place’ at times.  Sometimes there are so many ideas and characters that things get a little messy and you end up pining for the ‘condensed-ness’ of the original.  Also, the leader of the ‘zombie squad’ annoyed me a little bit.  He seemed to start off as an uber-geek and ended up being tougher than Rambo.  But those are just minor gripes.  I think Part 2 is a great little number that doesn’t detract from the original and has enough things in it that are new to warrant it standing out above many of the B-movie zombie films cluttering up bargain bins full of cheap DVDs you’ve never heard of.

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one