Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead (2014)

Directed By: Tommy Wirkola

Starring: Vegar Hoel, Orjan Gamsf, Martin Starr, Jocelyn DeBoer, Ingrid Haas, Kristoffer Joner, Derek Mears

Synopsis: Martin, the sole survivor of the first film continues his battle against Colonel Herzog and the zombie horde.

Thoughts: I was a huge fan of the first Dead Snow, as it blended Nazi Zombies, comedy and buckets of gore perfectly, so I was very excited to hear that Tommy Wirkola was making a sequel. No punches were pulled as the gore is ramped up and the storyline is just ridiculous enough to be highly entertaining.

Colonel Herzog returns with his Nazi Zombie horde, but he quickly loses his arm, which then gets accidentally reattached to Martin, giving Martin powers over the dead and super strength. This sets up a showdown between Herzog and his horde and Martin and his freshly raised Russian zombies (like I said, ridiculous).

Although the cast is latgely Norwegian, some of them play Americans, so even if this is viewed in Norwegian, there is English dialogue at times. I watched it in English for my initial viewing, which is a bit of a departure for me, but I didn’t have any issues. I normally find dubbed movies very distracting (unless it is kung fu), but this was very smooth.

Vegar Hoel returns as Martin, the survivor from the initial onslaught, and is great as the lead. He definitely takes a cue from Bruce Campbell’s Ash in the early moments of the film as his arm is replaced with Herzog’s zombie arm and he struggles to control it.

I’ve been a fan of Wirkola’s since watching Dead Snow and Hansel and Gretal: Witch Hunters. He isn’t afraid to splash around the red stuff in his movies and his movies are fun. I can’t wait to see what he does next. Personally, I think he’d direct one hell of an Evil Dead movie.

Dead Snow 2 is one of my favorite horror releases from 2014, although I still have a lot to see. It’s a perfect blend of horror and comedy and is a great time. If you haven’t watched this yet, make it a point to check it out!