Butcher Block is a weekly series celebrating horror’s most extreme films and the minds behind them. Dedicated to graphic gore and splatter, each week will explore the dark, the disturbed, and the depraved in horror, and the blood and guts involved. For the films that use special effects of gore as an art form, and the fans that revel in the carnage, this series is for you.
One of the best things about horror sequels, typically, is the expanded budget that’s usually granted. While that means a bigger scaled story, it also means more money available for special effects. When it comes to splatter films, that’s especially good news. Such is the case with Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead, the over the top follow-up to 2009’s Norwegian horror-comedy Dead Snow. More gore, a much higher body count, and way more whimsical usage of intestines.
Picking up immediately after the events of the first film, Martin (Vegar Hoel) is trying to ward off Nazi zombie commander Herzog (Ørjan Gamst) from the windshield of his car while fleeing. An oncoming truck causes Herzog to lose a limb, and Martin crashes shortly after. When he wakes in the hospital, he’s horrified to discover that the surgeon mistook Herzog’s arm for his missing limb and attached it. Meanwhile, Herzog is raising a massive undead army. It’s up to Martin, his new zombie arm, and a trio of American zombie experts to stop them.
Director/Co-Writer Tommy Wirkola stomps his foot down on the accelerator from the opening moments and never lets up for a second in this sequel. It might still be a conventional siege movie at its core, but the splatstick attempts Peter Jackson-levels of reckless abandon. In other words, it’s pretty entertaining.
Dead Snow proved itself to be a huge fan of gore gags that involved intestines, and Red vs. Dead makes sure to continue that motif. There’s an insanely goofy moment where the Nazi zombies are stealing a tank from a World War II museum. One that’s been out of commission for decades, obviously. So, what’s a nasty zombie to do but siphon gas through intestinal tracts stretched out as far as cartoonishly possible?
It’s gratuitous and well done. Not just the gore, but the zombie makeup as well. All thanks to the special makeup effects team that included prosthetic makeup designer Mike Elizalde (Stranger Things, Pacific Rim, Attack the Block), makeup supervisor Steinar Kaarstein (Dead Snow, Trollhunter), and a slew of fantastic artists from Elizalde’s special effects company Spectral Motion.
Red vs. Dead closes out with another major Jackson-style moment, which I won’t disclose for those who haven’t watch yet, but it’s clear that Wirkola just wanted to create an irreverent ode to his splatstick forefathers. With much of the action taking place so close to civilization in this outing, the body count is higher. The number of zombies far greater, too, most of them played by professional mixed martial arts fighters. Above all, the bigger budget meant bigger, better gore.
Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead and its predecessor are two halves of one preposterous premise. The type that doesn’t sound like it should work, and yet it does. It’s a modern splatstick bonanza that adheres to the workings of gore masters like Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson. Sometimes you’re just in the mood for zombies siphoning gas by way of some screaming victim’s intestines – look no further than Red vs. Dead, a sequel that more than delivers.
