Dead Snow

Colour, 35 mm
Norway, 2009, 90 min
Section: Midnight Screenings

Synopsis

A group of medical students unloads an ample supply of beer and there is nothing to indicate that their stay at a mountain cabin won’t be utterly relaxing. Some of them sneer at an uninvited guest who tells them the story of a Nazi unit that froze to death nearby during the Second World War. And yet one shouldn’t discount mysterious nighttime guests – at least not when they appear in a zombie bloodfest comedy like this one. This self-conscious movie works with irony and black humor to wittily vary and even make use of the genre’s typical attributes. The characters here are not intended for quick slaughter. Instead they courageously fight against superior odds, and the film allows them to live long enough for us to judge their eventual demise a disappointment. Several parallel plot lines add to the tension and interest in the developing situation. How many of the protagonists will escape the "zombie pickle”? And by what inventive means will those not slated to survive depart from this world?

About the director

Tommy Wirkola (b. 1979, Alta, Norway) studied media at Finnmark University and film science at Lillehammer University College. He received his bachelors in film and television from Bond University, Australia. He debuted with the low-budget film Kill Buljo – The Movie (2007), which notched up great success and presaged the possibilities Wirkola developed in Dead Snow. The director also made the short films Stealing Candy and Little Red Riding Hood from the Hood, and the TV series "The Saga of Kurt Josef Wagle.” He also co-wrote the script for Dead Snow.