Today, I review DEAD SNOW 2: RED VS DEAD (2014, Tommy Wirkola) on its US Region-Free Blu-Ray release. And boy, what a complete disappointment it is! (A version of this review can also be seen on Amazon.co.uk too.)
Tommy Wirkola gave us the sublime DEAD SNOW in 2009 -
one of the greatest and most enjoyable horror films in recent times, and
then just a few years later, he gives us this - this complete cow-pat
of a sequel!Everything that made the first film great - a likeable cast; a clever, literate, fun and well-honed script, along with some great gore - is jettisoned for this shoddy, third-rate sequel! An awful second film, with almost no redeeming qualities to it, whatsoever!
Firstly, fans should be made aware, that there are two versions of this sequel:
- The English-language version, that runs to 100m 32s, and
- the "International" or Norwegian version, which runs to 100m 53s.
Both are almost identical, in terms of content, with just occasional exceptions here-and-there, except for the spoken language. However, both were filmed at the same time with the same cast and crew. Why two versions were needed, unless that is, Mr Wirkola was trying to gain more fans in Hollywood, by Anglicising his work, I don't know. They cancel each other out, as both are neither wholly in Norwegian, nor wholly in English, to the detriment of the film as a whole!
Sadly, the UK Blu-Ray and/or DVD versions only get the International version, predominantly in Norwegian, with some English. which - if I had to choose - is a marginal improvement over the purely English-language version. The English-language version, is a US Exclusive to the US WellGo Entertainment Blu-Ray release I've imported and am reviewing here. Admittedly, that release is labelled as being Region A (US only) locked, but their release is - in fact - Region Free, and can be safely imported into the UK and played on the vast majority of UK Blu-Ray players and drives.
With that
said, and irrespective of which release you buy, or which version of the
film you view, or which country's release you buy/rent, the film as a whole, is pretty bloody terrible. It
starts off really well, with Martin (Vegar Hoel - in the green tracksuit) the only survivor from
the original, getting into his car, having chainsawed his arm off, and
desperately trying to escape.Continuing off from the final moments of the original, was a great idea. As his escape is complicated by some more Nazi's, things don't run smoothly, and the resulting bloodbath is both side-splittingly funny and very graphic!
Alas, the film degenerates rapidly, once Martin arrives in hospital, and then tries to convince people that Nazi Zombies are about to take over the world, because of the Nazi Gold he and his friends from the original film discovered in their cabin, but were all brutally slaughtered for.
The film outstays its welcome for four reasons:
1) At 101-minutes, it chugs along rather slowly, compared to the dynamite pace of the first film.
2) There's almost no plot once Martin arrives in hospital. He escapes, and he fights the Nazi Zombies. That's pretty much it!
3) The acting is absolutely horrific! Some of the worst "talent" I've seen in a movie, in many a year!
4) Tommy Wirkola clearly decided to forego a great script, and spend his budget on CGI effects and lots more zombies - both of which negate much of the enjoyment for the viewer.
Some of the CGI seems horribly misplaced. When Martin and Herzog, the lead Nazi Zombie, resurrect their armies of undead, they do so by punching the ground, and have the deceased brought back to life with "lightning bolts". The effect looks cheap, and is really hammy, in my view. Worse still, the fact we have more zombies, does not mean this is a more enjoyable film. It isn't! In fact, having about 80 or so, undead - split across the "good" and "bad" sides - just means Wirkola has to spend more time finding more interesting ways to dispatch each of those who die. There's only so many intestine-ripping deaths, or heads being crushed, that I can stomach, before it all blends into one, gigantic mess of movie Special Effects! It all becomes mind-numbingly dull, rather than exciting, shocking or enjoyable! For every fun or shocking death, there are ten or twelve others that are pointlessly repeated.
On top of this, the acting is atrocious! Martin seems to be acting very much by-the-numbers, just shouting and screaming enough to remain plausible. But the three "Americans" who form the "Zombie Squad" (an Internet-based group who really believe that the world is being overrun by zombies) is just farcical, to the point of embarrassment! It's a shockingly inept set of characters, marred by an even worse bunch of talentless morons, who can't act for toffee!
To really twist the knife, in the viewers guts, two of the Zombie Squad are "American" teenage nerds/geeks, one of whom is obsessed with STAR WARS! This kind of tokenistic fan-worshipping kills the film stone dead! It's shambolic, to the point, that you'll feel ashamed to be spending time watch them desperately fight their way through the zombie hordes. I name and shame the following three actors: Martin Starr as Daniel (shown in the photo below), Jocelyn DeBoer as Monica, and Ingrid Haas as Blake, so you can avoid all of them, should they turn-up in any other work, in the near future. None of these three could punch their way out of a saturated paper bag. They give bad films a bad reputation, because they seem to be under the illusion, that all their hysterical screeching and shouting of "America", in a rather pathetic piece of blatant jingoism, counts as actual acting. It doesn't!
Yes,
the film contains many fun and gory deaths, which are quite impressive.
Yes, the film is mindlessly fun at times. But it all smacks of utter
desperation and tragedy - and not in a good way. Even the "I Heart Norway" t-shirt, that you seen in the picture to the left, is cringe-inducingly naff!This is ineptness, painted large, with a budget that clearly didn't stretch to anyone remotely competent, having been completely decimated on the CGI and a fully working Army Tank! I kid you not! Even the Police officers are all hamming it up, whilst the viewer sits there, with their head in their hands just begging for this nonsense to cease as quickly as humanly possible! The latter part of the film, is a twenty-minute grudge match, with the Good Zombies fighting the Bad Nazi Zombies. It's embarrassing to watch, for much of the time, and feels like I'm watching some talentless, bottom of the league, primary school football teams slug it out. It's just toe-curlingly awful!
Tommy Wirkola has quite blatantly sold himself, (and that of the DEAD SNOW franchise), out! And this is absolutely a franchise, because Part 2 ends up with a post-credits coda that clearly demonstrates we are going to be seeing a DEAD SNOW 3 in the not-too-distant future.
Why did you have to sell yourself out, Mr Wirkola?! I get the impression that if you were given a smaller budget, and less time, you might have come up with something much more tightly-paced and innovative - the very things that made the first movie such a surprisingly great hit around the globe. As it stands, this is just a car-wreck of a movie, and should be immediately disassociated from the original!
Even the Extras aren't great: the US and UK release both get a frivolous two-minute-long Special Effects featurette, that merely shows the before and after shots - most of which is CGI material. There's a trailer, and a short-film of about 14 minutes. Considering the original film, came with an 80-minute Documentary about the "Making Of", this is just a two-fingered-salute from the UK studio to the fans! At least the USA, gets the alternate edit of the film (the English-language version) to watch, alongside the other pitiful extras I've just mentioned.
Ultimately, this is a film rotten to the core. It's barely worth renting, let alone purchasing, but either way, it sullies and degrades the original film's name, in almost every way imaginable. And that is something Tommy Wirkola should be thoroughly ashamed of!
In my eyes, this is now another in a long line of great films, with really lousy sequels. Avoid it!
I will be back soon, to complete my article on the value of film criticism, and some more news on my Cinema City Extreme All-Nighter event. Thanks for reading!
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