I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

UMM... DO I HAVE THE WRONG SEQUEL HERE? IT SAYS IT'S THE RIGHT ONE, HAS THE SAME MAIN CHARACTERS AS THE FIRST ONE BUT WE HAVE OH-SO-MANY THINGS THAT ARE OH-SO-WRONG ABOUT THIS MOVIE THAT IT JUST CAN'T BE...

Død Snø 2 aka Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead (2014) Iceland

Let's turn our wayback machines to the year 2009. In those days children, I actually READ MAGAZINES to find out what new music and movies were coming. Geez, those pages were sooooo heavy. In a small ad in a music magazine they had Død Snø, and oh did I want to see it. But finding it? Pffft... it was nowhere to be found - at least back when I wasn't quite as savvy as finding films as I am now.

Hmm? Oh, I just picked
this one at random...

Nazi zombies? Are you kidding? As long as there was no Hitler head in a jar-o I wanted to see it and was panting in anticipation... uh wait, no, that was the high blood pressure meds making me hyperventilate and get sick... it wouldn't have done me any good anyway. The film was a Norwegian horror film, and, at least back then, foreign films were slow coming to the American general public, unless you had the bucks to go to film festivals.

When almost two years later I finally got my hands on a copy of Død Snø (Dead Snow) I watched it once. I twitched. I watched it twice. It took me six months to get rid of the tick that developed in my face and no, I'm not talking about insects.

You've got 30-something people (and I know they were that old 'cause it gives their ages in the second movie) going up during Easter break (They have an Easter break?) from medical school (they'll be about 60 before they become doctors at this rate) up this mountain near Øksfjord. I have to trust that's correct because the film is in Norwegian, dubbed into English.


Gallons of blood and miles of taffy pulling follow in both movies. Hmm, have I ever explained what a taffy pull is? Well, on my Horror Movie Review Worksheet (patent pending), a taffy pull is when a zombie goes straight for what one would think the last thing anyone would want to eat in a human - their intestines. 

But intestines can be used over and over (who's gonna know) and I have to admit there were some creative use of taffy pulling in both of these movies. In fact, Død Snø 2 wins for Most Creative Taffy Pulling of 2014, even if it defied the laws of gravity and physics (and it was icky too). I must warn you - it's nasty so...

I was kind of disappointed in Død Snø but I figured it was probably because I had to wait so long and probably also because not every special effects person can be like Tom Savini. I had to admit though the ending was a bit surprising and I don't have to worry about any spoilers 'cause it's the beginning of this movie. The difference between the first and second? The first was a fairly good, serious zombie movie. 

The second mess was a lot of nonsense that should have been called 'The Three Stooges Meet A Hell Of A Lot O' Zombies' because nasty and not making any sense but trying to be funny was what this movie was. That sentence I just typed made no sense whatsoever. Now you know how I feel.

At the end of the first and the beginning of the second movie, lone survivor Martin makes it to his car sans his right arm. As he's trying to get the keys in the ignition with his left arm, he drops a gold coin. If you saw the first movie, that's what it was all about - a freaking small box of gold that the Nazis were 'hiding' in the cabin these 'kids' were using.

I mean, we're talking the size of a shoe box - well, okay, a box for boots. That's it. But Oberst Herzog, leader of these miraculous frozen-since-WWII-yet-warm-enough-for-steam-to-come-out-of-their-mouths Nazis wants every last bit so the last of the movie is him smashing the driver's window. The beginning also shows another soldier smashing the passenger window so Martin is pretty much in deep shit.


The shock has transmogrified Martin from being a Norwegian-speaking native of Norway to a perfect English speaking Norwegian living in Iceland. He also speaks in that kind of monotone that makes you slap your forehead (don't do that, it hurts and leaves a mark). 

He talks about how it was all supposed to be so much fun - a bunch of young people on break from school (I SAW the ages dude - 31 and up is an ADULT dumbass). Just a romp in the mountains and BAM, they're attacked by a bunch of frozen Nazi zombies. He then says "I know that sounds like a cliche'."

I slapped my forehead so hard I lost consciousness and so I had to take a day off before continuing... No, frozen Nazis ruining your Easter break is no more a cliche' than 'It's like rain on your wedding day...' is ironic. I won't print the name of the person who did that song, but she knows who she is.

But he gets the car started, somehow gets it in gear and takes off. Herzog hangs on for his very life (that was a joke, please laugh now) as Martin careens through the snow trying to get away. Martin finds an 18-wheeler and purposely skids along the side, dislodging Herzog and leaving behind Herzog's right arm in the car.

Groaning is now allowed - it's okay, I'll wait. Martin wrecks the car in movie-duh style and wakes in the hospital. He is under arrest for the murder of his friends. Well, to be fair, he DID embed a small ax into the neck of his girlfriend. Here's a tip - NEVER sneak up on your boyfriend when he's hip deep in frozen Nazis.

This has been a Zombie Public Service Announcement

But Norway has an excellent medical system - they somehow believe Herzog's severed seventy-five-plus year old arm (which is still partly frozen and in a German uniform) belongs to Martin - so now it does (you may roll your eyes if you wish but not at me mister or they'll be rolling on the floor). Good thing they handcuffed the sewn-on arm 'cause it's pissed to be on a Norwegian and it keeps fighting.


After a mishap with a police officer and a small boy (please don't ask) Martin gets away and discovers that Herzog and his frozen crew came off the mountain and somehow didn't just decompose instantly. Why? They've got their shoebox of gold, right? Well, in Norway, the rules of zombie etiquette is that not only do you want everything you can get and believe is yours (Where are they gonna spend it?), but you need to finish every piece of unfinished business you were supposed to do when you were alive.

Herzog attempts and fails to raise a
whole graveyard... guess they were too busy.

In Herzog's case, he was supposed to destroy the town of Talvik as directed by Hitler himself. Since they didn't bother to translate the German, from what I could push from my little brain and a bad translator is that basically they have a doctor in this movie (?!?) who was able to transmogrify (yeah I know I used this word already) Martin's arm to replace Herzog's. 

The doctor tells Herzog they need warm bodies for recruits. I think. Umm, what? This involves smashing people to death but not bad enough so that they cannot get back up and fight. No, I'm not going to explain how that would work in any shape or form.

I wonder which one was Curly...

Martin gets to a German museum just minutes ahead of Herzog and finds out about the 'master plan'. We get a brief Three Stooges moment as Glenn the curator, openly gay and openly mocked 'cause this is Norway, and Martin, dressed as soldiers, pretend to be statues while the Nazis breathe in their faces (I'm guessing), just daring them to blink.

If you notice (or even care) Glenn with all the makeup, you'll realize that he actually played Roy in the first Død Snø. He dies in both movies. Bummer.

His very first zombie kill. Unfortunately it's
not the zombie's first death and
he has several more waiting for him.

This is their official logo. Your results may vary...

They also meet the American Zombie Squad. It is three 'nerds' who work out of their parent's house. The minute they get to Norway they clean out a hardware store 'cause there's no guns in Norway (yeah, right). 

And then this happens:

Yeah yeah, I know, how horrible - what a terrible waste of ammo!



The other two zombie hunters and the doomed curator try to slow down Herzog with homemade bombs and having the 'new' zombies chase the curator around because, umm, they had to make the movie last until they had 90 minutes worth?

Anywho... They have to save this movie... umm I mean Talvik so Martin figures out that hey, if Herzog can raise the dead... he goes to a frozen mountain pass where Herzog and his men had slaughtered a Russian POW group they had made dig a mountain pass. He brings them to life because... umm... Herzog's arm forgot where it was? 'Cause it's not trying to strangle people anymore and... oh man I've got a headache. But on the way they get stuck and this happens.

I'm a woman and I know the guy is supposed to be dead anyway but oh bloody freaking hell... but this scene has to win the 2014 Practical Use Of A Zombie award. Let's see The Walking Dead try something like that!



Anywho, to keep this slaughter party going, Martin has to raise all the Russians killed here (Nobody bothered to give them a proper burial? Remind me never to go to Norway...) so since Herzog's arm is now buddies with the rest of Martin's body, he does the same thing Herzog tried to do and... and... geez. 

This was a looooong way out, they have ONE small car and the much-abused zombie is already in the backseat, how the freaking hell did they get the Russian zombies back to... whoops, sorry, looking for logic there. Forgot why I was here. I think I'm developing a brain tumor.

But they show up really fast so this movie can get even more bloody before it ends. What I wanted to know was, why did all the Russians look like gingers? I have absolutely no problem with guys with red hair (mine's red) but ALL these guys had red hair and beards. Was that their preferred look?
Do we care?


The final fight: A whole bunch of Russians against Herzog, the Nazis he has left, and the others he 'recruited'. Sigh. About the only funny part (because I guess they decided to make this a 'funny' zombie movie, I just wish they had clued us in ahead of time) was when the zombies got gutted and were out of intestines, the 'doctor' just grabbed straw and we had a little 'The Wizard Of Oz' action going on. And... that's about it.

The end? Really? You want to know? Sigh - okay. Herzog confronts Martin, their two re-attached arms have a passionate affair and pop off both bodies and slither away... okay, okay that didn't happen. But that would have been a better ending - at least in my opinion.

Herzog discovers the Nazis lost the war. He's standing on a car, the tank directly behind him and doesn't hear the cannon moving to aim directly at the back of his head. That's 'cause the American Zombie Squad leader got in the tank, shot both operators (which would have rendered him instantly deaf but we won't go into that) and, somehow knowing how to work a WWII tank, he aims the cannon and shoots Herzog's head off. Now I say "off" instead of "apart" because... that's what happened, okay? 

Then... umm... I really don't want to type this but at least I won't show any pictures. Martin goes to his girlfriend's grave, digs her up and they, umm, do stuff that makes the car rock while the zombie-of-many-deaths watches. I think I'm going to be sick. ROLL CREDITS!

OH BLOODY HELL THEY'VE GOT AN EPILOGUE AT THE END OF THE CREDITS!!!!

Now, when the 'chiefs' of each side got wasted, all their zombies instantly died too (although I don't know why the Russians did since their leader was Martin and he was still alive, but...) and of course Herzog's head probably travelled about half a mile.


Our last scene is the doctor, who somehow did NOT die when Herzog did (again), finds Herzog's intact head and... IF HE PUTS THAT FRIGGIN' HEAD IN A JAR, I QUIT!!!