Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead



Martin, the only survivor left from the last film’s encounter with the undead Nazi horde, manages to escape the zombies, but not unscathed. He’s battered, he’s bloodied, he’s down one arm, and his attempt to satisfy the zombie’s curse by returning their lost gold to them has spectacularly failed and they’re now marching down the mountain intent on taking out the local populace. What’s worse, is that the police have found (what’s left of) Martin’s friends and he’s now on the hook for their murder. Oh, plus the local doctor has somehow managed to attach a misplaced zombie arm to his severed limb. Great. With the police hot on his trail and nobody else believing his wild story about murderous zombie Nazis, Martin is forced to rely on a random museum clerk and a rag-tag group of American “zombie experts” to stop the zombie menace before they take out too many more innocent people. You know, assuming the American’s can make it through customs and their parents don’t catch them sneaking out of the country. Should be fine.


It’s okay. They’re professionals.

Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead is the followup to 2009’s Dead Snow and picks up right where the last film left off. The quickest way to describe the sequel is that it’s almost exactly the same in tone to the second half of the first film, but with everything jacked up to eleven. There are more characters, there are more settings, there’s more violence and action, there’s more humor, the blood and gore is now damn dear constant, and there’s even more movie, with the film adding a good 10 minutes of runtime. In short, if you liked the first one you’re in luck, because now there’s just more of everything for you to enjoy.


Lots more. Oodles, even.

To be fair, a lot of the movie’s plot still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if you stop to think about it for too long. But that’s not really the point of the film. The point of the film is to have fun watching a group of normal, everyday idiots try to stop a zombie apocalypse. So when the zombies steal a tank from the WWII museum you’re not supposed to wonder how far that thing can go on a single tank of fuel, or where the hell they found all the live shells or ammunition for it (maybe museums in Norway are more lenient in their safety standards, I don’t know.) Nor are you supposed to wonder why Martin’s new zombie arm is sort of out of his control, but then it isn’t out of his control because the movie seems to have forgotten that it’s sorta supposed to be out of his control, and that it’s also able to raise the dead for some reason. You’re not supposed to think about those things, ‘cause those things involve logic. And that just ain’t the type of film this is. This film is just a silly zombie movie trying to be a silly zombie movie, so just try to turn your brain off and enjoy it.



And thankfully for the silly zombie movie lovers not only does this film deliver, but it does it better than its predecessor. In part because the pacing for the sequel has been streamlined. In the first film, the first half of the plot is pretty sedate. Yeah, there are a couple of jokes, quips and sight gags, but it was also so chill that it could potentially be mistaken for the start of a drama if you didn’t already know what kind of movie you were watching. It isn’t until the zombies show up that things like the comedy and the excessive gore come into play. But in the sequel the zombies are already here, so everything sorta stays at the same semi-kookie level, at least until the end when things get really crazy. So you never go too long without some form of comedy, or gore, or maybe even both, to keep you entertained, which is a nice improvement over the first film.


Nope, not even in Norway can a guy take a crap in peace without something interrupting him.

Another highly noticeable improvement is the increase in gore. You can tell they had a higher budget to work with on the sequel because there is just blood everywhere in this movie. People are shot, stabbed, slashed, run over, torn apart, eviscerated, blown up… You name it, it probably happened in this movie. I’m honestly surprised you can even see Martin by the end with all the splatter and viscera they’ve thrown at him. And most of it looked to be real this time, not CGI blood splatter, so that was also nice. My only complaint is that they seemed to be a little obsessed with ripping people’s intestines out and watching people get strangled with them, because they did that a handful of times. But other than that odd repeat, I imagine that the gore-hounds will be happy with this film.


Okay, so there’s still some CGI, but only because it’s illegal to actually blow up a baby.

Beyond that there’s not too much else to say about Dead Snow 2. It aims to be a fun, silly, over-the-top zombie movie and I think they more than achieved that goal. It’s quick, it’s (very) bloody, the designs are good, the characters are likable, and the humor is plentiful and diverse. It’s just a goofy good time. So if you’re a fan of horror comedies and zombie movies then you’ll probably find this very entertaining. Unless of course you demand something far more serious from your horror films, or you can’t stand the sight of blood. Then you’ll likely want to avoid this like the zombie plague.

Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead is available on a variety of streaming services.

Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead is also available on DVD and Bluray.

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