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Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead
Plot (Spoiler Alert)Continuing where it left up in the first one…Martin is in a car and the Nazi zombie leader, Herzog, is after him. After one of the zombies bit Martin’s arm, he had to cut it off. Herzog tries to hold onto the car Martin is fleeing in. A truck comes along and hits Herzog causing his arm to be sliced off. Shortly after that Martin passes out behind the wheel and the car crashes. Martin awakes in the hospital with the arm of Herzog surgically attached to him. The doctors believed it was Martin’s arm. Martin is questioned about the deaths of his friends up in the mountains and remains a prime suspect. Martin tries to explain that it was Nazi zombies who killed them, but the police don’t believe him. The arm acts up and kills the doctor and attacks the police. The nurse injects a needle into Martin causing him to pass out and then he is strapped against the bed. Herzog, the Nazi zombie leader, arrives at a doctor’s house and bashes his head in. He revives him after that with his magical arm and has the doctor attach the arm Martin cut off attached to him. Meanwhile at the hospital, a young tourist boy sneaks into Martin’s room and asks Martin questions about the zombies. The boy is from a group of Americans who call themselves the Zombie Squad. The boy frees Martin. The arm looses control again and throws the boy out the window. Martin tries give him CPR, but ends up crushing the boys chest. Martin takes his phone, steals a car and runs. Martin gets a call from the Zombie Squad leader, Daniel. Through the phone, Martin tells Daniel his story on the zombies. Daniel tells him to hang on for the Zombie Squad will be on their way. Martin makes a stop at a World War II museum and finds clothes in the trunk that he can wear. He sees a newspaper saying he’s a wanted man. The person at the front desk, Glenn Kennth, recognizes Martin from the papers and tries to call for help, but Martin stops him and tells him to calm down. Martin wants info the Herzog and Glenn brings him to the second floor. Martin wants to know what Herzog is up to and what Herzog wants is to destroy Talvik. Destroying Talvik was Herzog’s mission when he was alive, but he and his men were butchered down before he had a chance. Martin hears screaming outside. Martin and Glenn look to see what is happening from the window and they see the Nazi zombies killing and slaughtering the tourists. Herzog revives some of them to recruit. Martin and Glenn pose as wax figures when he Herzog and his men enter the room and steal a map that leads them to Talvik. They also steal the tank from the museum and head out. Martin tests his new arm to see what it is capable of. He kills the zombies with it. Martin has to find away to defeat Herzog and his army, but he can’t do it by himself. Martin sees one of the poor victims lying dead on the ground. Martin closes the man’s eyes and then discovers that his arm can bring back the dead too, just like Herzog. The Zombie Squad shows up and they aren’t what Martin was expecting. He was expecting them to be professionals, but instead they’re nerds. There’s Daniel, the leader, and his two colleagues, Blake and the "Star Wars” fanatic, Monica. The tracked Martin down through the phone. Daniel has an idea that they create an army of their own to defeat Herzog. There are Russian POWS buried beneath frozen soil in Kven mountain and their leader, Stavarin, is the enemy of Herzog. Martin and Daniel drive to Kven mountain with their zombie sidekick while Blake, Monica and Glenn go after Herzog and try and slow him down. The Nazi zombies kill people in a small neighborhood and then Herzog raises some of them as his soldiers. Glenn becomes bait so he can lure some of the zombies into the swamps so they can get stuck and Blake and Monica throw fertilizer bombs at them to blow them up. The plan becomes successful, but Herzog as the tank aimed at them and fires. They are no where to be seen so Herzog presumes they are dead. That night Martin and Daniel arrive at Kven mountain and find the spot where the Russians are buried. Martin doesn’t know how he’s going to revive Russians zombies through the cold soil. The the arm acts up and slams itself in the ground and spreads it’s magic through the soil causing the Russians to rise from the dead. Martin is scared. The leader, Stavarin, goes over to him and calls him master. Martin goes “Fuck, yeah!" As morning approaches, Herzog and his army approach a small town where Martin confronts him. Martin informs Herzog that they evacuated the townspeople before he showed up. Martin says Herzog should just forget about his mission and go back to where he came. Herzog thinks it’s a joke until Martin reveals he has his old arm. The Russians show themselves on Martin’s side. The battle begins. The police show up and ask what is going on. The tank is heading their way and they run out of the cars screaming as the tank crushes the police cars. The police then hide. Daniel goes after the tank to take control of it. Herzog fights with Stavarin. Blake, Monica and Glenn show up and join the battle. Herzog is down on the ground and Stavarin is about to finish him, but of the soldiers attacks Stavarin from behind and then Herzog puts a pix axe in his head. The Nazis are overpowering Martin’s Russian zombies. Monica points out that Martin’s army still stands and if Herzog dies than the magic will fade out and the Nazi’s will be no more. Martin attacks Herzog and pushes him through a wall into a house. Herzog throws him around the place, then Martin hits Herzog with a pan and then Herzog tries to put a knife through Martin’s head. The Nazis kill all the Russian zombies and Glenn is killed. Monica and Blake are outnumbered. They defend themselves back to back as hard as they can. Daniel enters the tank and fights the zombie controlling it. With no one driving it, the tank crashes into the house and Martin and Herzog now fight while the tank is moving. Martin kills the zombie and then stops the tank. Martin falls off. Herzog has had enough of him. Daniel aims the cannon at Herzog’s head then open fires at it blowing the head off of Herzog and causing the Nazi zombies to expire. Shortly after that, Martin and the Zombie Squad say their goodbyes to each other and go their separate ways. Martin drives to the graveyard his deceased girlfriend, Hanna, is. He digs up her grave and revives her. They kiss and then make love in the car. The zombie sidekick is revealed to have survived, but is badly damaged. The after credit scene shows the zombie doctor finding Herzog’s head…..alive. 
Blaine: The first “Dead Snow” is described as a traditional horror film and for the second one writer and director, Tommy Wirkola, said they wanted tones of gags, gore, humor and action. The first one's about trying to survive from Nazi zombies in the mountains, the second one is about building a zombie army with a magical arm and going to battle. Plus they were speaking english in this one compared to speaking Norwegian in the first one. The magical arm that is now attached to Martin starts off as a killing machine and has a mind of it’s own because he doesn’t know how to control it. It kind of reminds me of “Evil Dead 2” when Bruce Campbell’s hand gets possessed, tries to kill him and he has to cut it off. In time he learns it has super strength and discovers it can resurrect the dead. After Martin brought back that wheelchair guy, the first time I saw it , I thought Martin and the museum guy, Glenn, were in trouble because the wheelchair guy comes back as a zombie and Martin and Glenn’s backs were turned and the zombie could attack them. But like the characters in the film, I learned that Martin can bring back the dead like Herzog and they will obey him. The zombie side kick starts off in a wheelchair when he’s alive and bringing brought back from the dead also gives him his legs back. The wheelchair guy zombie keeps taking damage to the body and looks like shit. Tommy Wirkola said for every injury that character received, they added another hour of make up. The first “Dead Snow” was shot in Norway and Director Tommy Wirkola said a lot of people don’t realize that the second one was shot in Iceland. They faked Iceland for the North of Norway because it was too expensive to film in Norway. The scene that cracks me up the most is the insane war look Blake, played by Ingrid Haas, shows on her face when she and Monica join the fight. Director, Tommy Wirkola, really likes the sound of Christian Wibe's music score in the film and how it sounds majestic throbbing. Tommy Wirkola is a fan of “Freaks and Geeks” and he really likes Martin Starr’s character on the show and thought it would be a good idea of him being in the film. Martin had seen the first “Dead Snow" and liked the idea of doing something a little different for him by being an action hero. The craziest scene is when the Nazi zombies slaughter all the humans in that small town. They bash a guys head with a sink, one woman gets crushed by the tank, they even blew away babies with the tank. It’s like "holy shit!” Tommy has a big thing for intestines and likes to invent new stuff with it. In the film the Nazi zombies take one guy’s intestines to pump gas from the bus into the tank. One of the zombies used a guys intestines to strangle another guy. Martin took down two zombies by taking one of the zombies intestines and wrapped it around the other zombie and then threw the intestines up against an electric cable and they both got shocked. The final battle scene took over ten days to shoot because they knew they wanted a big finally. Martin revives his girlfriend, Hanna, back from the dead and she has already rotted away and her brain isn’t fully functional, but that doesn’t matter to him because he loves her even in death and then they have sex in the car which is weird while the song "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler plays in the background. The after credit ending shows the zombie doctor holding the head of Herzog. And apparently Herzog isn’t completely gone for good. I don’t know if there will be a third “Dead Snow” movie, but I know what my rating on "Dead Snow 2” is and that’s five out of five. From left to right: Martin Starr, Jocelyn DeBoer, Vegar Hoel and Ingrid Haas at the Sundance Film Festival 2014 
Song: Total Eclipse of the Heart Artist: Bonnie Tyler |