Thriller

DEAD SNOW ‘Død Snø’ (2009)

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Taking its cue from The Evil Dead but adding snow and Nazi Zombies, Dead Snow is a fun, low-budget Norwegian horror film with it’s tongue placed firmly in its cheek.

The fact that it’s Norwegian was the clincher, no Troma tropes here, if it was American it would be found in the bargain bucket at your local video store.
Hold on, do they still exist in this computer age?

Directed by Tommy Wirkola, who went onto make Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, here he does what he can with the limited budget and creates a slightly above average horror film.

Nazi Zombies. The South Park creators utilized this cross genre gold mine in their very funny show and recent game The Stick of Truth. You’re basically onto a winner, if you play your cards right. Nazis. Zombies. A great combination.

This film was much more enjoyable the first time round, seeing it again, the holes are much more noticeable. The zombies take too long to appear but when they do, the fun begins.

The usual horror film clichés are evident, some young medical students go on a ski vacation to a remote hut and are visited by a mysterious stranger who tells them of the legend of a local curse that originated during the Nazi occupation of the area in the second world war. They have a laugh about it but the laughter stops when Colonel Herzog and his merry band of undead Nazi soldiers turn up and start causing havoc.

Filled with stereotypes, this was never going to be a classic but nevertheless there is fun to be had.

The sequel Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead has been released so it will be fun to see how a little bit more money helps or hinders.

Nazi  + zombies = jokes.

3/5

BUY THE BLU RAY DVD HERE

DOWNLOAD THE FILM ON iTUNES HERE

DISTRICT 9 (2009)

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When this came out in 2009 it was with great anticipation and excitement.

Neill Blomkamp had previously directed a few short films Tetra Vaal, Yellow and Alive in Joburg.
The story goes that Peter Jackson had seen Blomkamp’s shorts including the wonderful Alive in Jo’Burg and ended up producing this very interesting sci-fi

The brilliant short film ‘Alive in Jo’Burg’ was a direct inspiration for D9 and came to the attention of Peter Jackson, who went on to produce this intelligent sci-fi film with a distinctly new take on the townships problems and making the residents literal aliens . He used real interviews with residents in the short film, asking them how they felt about Nigerians and Zimbabweans. This gave him the idea of replacing the humans with aliens as an allegory.

 

Watching Alive in Jo’Burg you can see the director’s strengths, the shaky cam making the effects much more believable. It is a brilliant short that was a fantastic calling card for Blomkamp.

Here, he elaborates on his short by creating a film that comments on racism in South Africa and putting the aliens into the townships, out of sight of the human residents.

In 1982 a massive alien craft comes to a standstill over Johannesburg and we find out that the aliens inside are starving and have no way of flying away, so, stranded, they are transported off the ship and relocated to a refugee camp that over the years becomes a militarized ghetto.

Wikkus Van De Merwe, brilliantly played by Sharlto Copley, works for MNU (Multi-National United), a weapons corporation, and, as he is married to the boss’s daughter, he is given the task of evicting the aliens to a concentration camp outside the city. This makes for some brilliantly realistic scenes of interaction between the aliens (all played by Jason Cope) all of which were predominantly improvised by Copley and Cope.

Wikkus is exposed to an alien formula that he has confiscated making his life very difficult as the effects of this become clear. Copley shows his range here throughout his journey and we see a character that is building and growing as he goes through his transformation.

If you haven’t seen this, I highly recommend it for a piece of innovative film-making and a welcome addition to the sci-fi world.

4/5

BUY THE FILM ON BLU RAY DVD HERE

DOWNLOAD THE FILM ON iTUNES HERE