Norway / Iceland / USA / UK 2014 100m Directed by: Tommy Wirkola. Starring: Vegar Hoel, Ørjan Gamst, Martin Starr, Jocelyn DeBoer, Ingrid Haas, Stig Frode Henriksen, Hallvard Holmen, Kristoffer Joner, Amrita Acharia, Derek Mears, Bjarte Tjøstheim, Christian Rubeck, Charlotte Frogner. Music by: Christian Wibe.
If the worst day of your life consisted of accidentally killing your girlfriend with an axe, chain-sawing your own arm off, and watching in horror as your closest friends were devoured by a zombified Nazi battalion, you'd have to assume that things couldn't get much worse. In Martin's case, that was only the beginning.
|
There are tons of zombie films out there in the world today. Everywhere you look, there are zombies. It's the popular thing in our culture these days. I only wish they were as popular when I was in high-school and college, but I digress. Since the zombie phenomenon is showing no sign of slowing down, there is a wide variety of different types of zombies to add to this ever expanding genre. Perhaps one of my favorite type of zombie film is the nazi zombie genre, which has been around for longer than you might have imagined. It's such an outlandish idea, but is always quite fun to see on screen.
In 2009, we received the ever popular nazi zombie film 'Dead Snow', which centered around a group of friends that traveled to a cabin to enjoy some relaxation and snow sports. But when they came across some actual gold, it awoke a nazi German army from underground who were hellbent on brains, blood, and that gold. Five years later, we have a sequel to that film called 'Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead', and this sequel is just as good if not better than its predecessor. I definitely did nazi that coming. (I'm sorry, but I had to.) In an excellent homage to 'Army of Darkness', 'Red Dead 2' starts off with a narration from Martin (Vegar Hoel), the sole survivor from the first film, who gives us an excellent and gory recap of the first film, which leads us to the current movie, which literally starts off right where the last one left us with Martin trying to escape a giant nazi zombie army led by a zombie named Herzog.
This most excellent sequel mixes some brilliant and gut busting laughs with some over-the-top and quite good visual effects of blood and internal organs. Not to mention all the dramatic and horror angles this film has too. But mostly, it has tons of moments where you want to yell out loud, "That was Awesome." Martin has lost his arm due to a zombie bite, which he cut off to stop the infection (again, an 'Evil Dead 2' reference). In his escape, Herzog, the zombie nazi commander loses his arm too. After an accident, Martin wakes up in the hospital where he sees he has his arm re-attached, but unfortunately it's not his arm.
It's Herzog's arm, which takes on a life of its own as it begins to attack people. The police and detectives believe that Martin is a serial killer and responsible for killing his friends from the first film. But he tells them of the zombie Nazis who were responsible for the mayhem, and much to his dismay, everyone thinks he is insane, because who would believe such nonsense besides you and I. Martin manages to escape again with the help of an American kid who tells them there is a zombie death squad in America who can help him. A phone call to the zombie death squad sets things in motion, but we quickly see that this ferocious death squad is anything but dangerous, but rather three siblings in their parent's basement, preparing for the zombie apocalypse from what they've seen in their favorite movies and TV shows. Martin Star (Freaks and Geeks) and Ingrid Haas (Scott Pilgrim) are among the squad as they actually head out to Norway to fight of the zombies.
Martin meets up with some fellow zombie killers as the zombie nazi army is closing in, destroying everything in its path. But luckily for the humans, Martin's newly zombified arm summons another undead army from underground. This time it's a large army of Russians who were killed by the Nazis during WWII, and want revenge, hence the 'Red vs Dead' title. There are so many moments and scenes where you just want to join the action with these characters. It's that entertaining. And the comedy comes full force throughout the film. It's never cheesy as the filmmakers were well aware of the type of film they were making.
There are some surprisingly excellent performances here and the visual effects are very good, considering the low budget this movie had. 'Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead' is as much fun as you can have with a zombie move, and almost instantly requires another viewing right after the end credits finish.
Review by Bryan Kluger from the Internet Movie Database.