Dead Snow was wonderfully-gratifyingly-gruesomely-bloodily-awesome. I do not believe I have ever before seen a Norwegian film, but if this is what the Norwegians have to offer I want all I can get. And honestly the tagline says it all - Ein! Zwei! Die! - the second I saw that tagline I knew that I could not miss this movie.

As far as the story goes it’s about a group of college kids going up to some remote cabin in the woods in winter looking to have some fun and misbehave. And there are zombies. Nazi zombies. It’s pretty much perfect gruesome monster horror. The group are all young medical students on holiday. The first night up in the remote cabin they are startled by a traveler, an older man, whom they invite in out of the cold, and who is slightly insulting toward them in uncomfortable and amusing ways. The old man then proceeds to warn them about the region in all its spooky and unnatural glory. From there the story develops in typical yet exciting standard horror fashion. It was truly delightful. And there was something very terrifying and ingenious about the winter setting. Not only the vividness of the blood on the snow, but also the challenges and opportunities that multiple feet of snow afforded.

This was the kind of movie that makes me wish I had more movie knowledge, that makes me wish that I was an avid follower of all things horror. I caught a few references and homages to classics, but I feel that I was missing out on quite a few more.

I believe that the writers (Stig Frode Henriksen and Tommy Wirkola) and director (Tommy Wirkola) did something really wonderful; they gave us interesting characters who you could identify with, gave us just enough time to actually want some of them to survive and then the carnage began. And man what carnage. The gore was unbelievable. It was just beyond gory, and every moment of it was enjoyable. Blood, brains, and a recurring theme of intestines.

The film was quite funny and amusing in places, the comedic elements were nicely timed and well positioned in the story. And it was fun to have slightly intelligent tool using zombies, mostly because it was awesome seeing them run around with knives and bayonets; also it was so much more gratifying when any of the heroes destroyed them. The zombies looked really good (as in creepy and terrifying), the make-up and the design was not by any means subtle, but there were a lot of really fun and interesting details.

This is one of the rare times when I found myself rooting for both the heroes and the zombies, because every death was excitingly gory and ridiculously over the top. The heroes ended up being tough and giving the zombies a run for their money - women as well as men, which was wonderfully refreshing. The med student aspect was excellent, as it made for some really delicious impromptu patching up and first-aid. Another wonderful thing about Dead Snow was that it just kept escalating in violence and gore. Just when you thought you had seen the most gruesome death, you would be surprised with a shot of disembowlment or exploding brains or total dismemberment or a new and gruesome zombie/Norwegian-medical-student killing method.

Thoroughly enjoyable. In the theatre I heard people behind me laughing and gasping and groaning with disgust and amusement. By the way, sitting furthest forward may have been a mistake, hearing people eating their popcorn behind me while in front of me I was watching zombies eating Norwegian med students was a little disconcerting.

I found this thoroughly enjoyable, wonderfully gruesome, and gorily gratifying.