Movies
Dead Snow (Død Snø) (limited)
“DEAD SNOW is a decent time-waster, but it’s not funny enough to you laugh, not scary enough to make you cringe, and too derivative to be truly memorable.”
I watched and reviewed COLD PREY a couple of weeks ago, and I caught DEAD SNOW at Sundance this past weekend. Both films are from Norway, and both films share a few striking similarities:
A group of 20-somethings escape to the mountains of Norway for Easter weekend.
The youths are stranded at a secluded building deep in the icy mountains.
While stranded, everybody drinks lots of alcohol and constantly references American horror movies like the EVIL DEAD trilogy or THE SHINING in common conversation.
A character is catastrophically injured (falling off a snowy cliff; a compound leg fracture), only to miraculously return to the action moments later.
And lastly, the youths’ attempts to have sex generally end in tragedy.
So what’s different about DEAD SNOW? Well, honestly, both films are so similar, it all comes down to the scariness of the villain. In one corner you’ve got your hooded pick-axe killer from COLD PREY. Hey, a pick-axe is a scary weapon, it’s all phallic and everything, and getting stabbed hurts really bad. So there, the pick-axe killer. And then in the other corner you’ve got the Nazi zombies from DEAD SNOW, who are scary for the first 40 minutes when they hang back in the shadows, but once Captain Herzog and his cadre of undead soldiers are exposed to the light of a blustery winter day, you can see that their zombie make-up isn’t that scary after all. But they DO bite big chunks of flesh out of people, which is pretty harsh. Kind of a toss-up.
DEAD SNOW attempts to throw a few SHAUN OF THE DEAD-inspired moments of comedy into the mix, and a few of them fly, but most of them don’t. The gore fluctuates between bad-ass and non-existent: there’s a cool dismemberment scene, and if there’s any reason to see DEAD SNOW it’s for its head-tearing scene, but the filmmakers end up bailing on the gore potential of some of the kills, and when the remaining Norwegians take up armfuls of power tools to face the zombies head on, it’s too much CGI, too late. (For the record, I’m behind Mr. Disgusting’s abhorrence of CGI blood.) This is standard issue Norwegian horror, if there is such a thing. DEAD SNOW is a decent time-waster, but it’s not funny enough to you laugh, not scary enough to make you cringe, and too derivative to be truly memorable.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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