Come on! It was fun! Zombified Nazi soldiers from the war are attacking a bunch of students. And the students fight back. A lot of references to Evil Dead here, a lot of fun, stupendous gore, with all the guts and brains and blood you would ever want.

At times the humour in the film actually hurt the viewing, since it was obviously artificial, so the greatest flaw of the movie, according to yours truly, is that it was not consistent, ever shifting from parody to the real thing. But eve so, it was tons of fun.

Although I have to admit, the funniest part of the movie is when the Nazi zombie officer appears with a spotless officer hat. I can only imagine the poor guy, eternally cleaning his military attire.

Do I have complaints about Dead Snow, a movie about a group of Norwegian medical students who take their skis up to a cabin away from everybody only to discover to their baffled horror that nazi undead lurk and kill and go all Lephrachaun over a booty of coins and jewels hidden in said cabin? Well, perhaps, it could have gone a little further in some spots. The Nazis are decked out in their military garb, suits and helmets, but only a handful have the swastika arm-bands, none with Hitler mustaches, and only once does a zombie (Col. Herzog, perfect name by the way) actually utter a phrase, which is "ARISE" for his horde of solider to stampede after the hapless teens. The rest of it? Nope, nothing much to complain really.

The director is Tommy Wirkola, and he's done something I didn't expect going in: he made a movie that is shot with a level of competency that goes a couple of notches above just simple B-movie twaddle, or rather he doesn't rest solely upon it. Indeed some scenes, like when characters are buried under feet of snow or someone goes out into the dead of night, there's a dread that can be comparable to the recent film The Descent. It's a well made movie that happens to be about 55% of the time as campy and gore-riffic as anything one's seen this year outside of the Japanese Tokyo Gore Police school. On top of this, there's a clever twist on horror conventions; one of the characters is a movie geek (Evil Dead and Friday the 13th are mentioned),and the tropes like having sex and then getting killed or the stranger who explains everything early on and then gets slaughtered first, are chalked up royally... and then come the Third Reich.

Oh it's such a blast, Dead Snow is. At first you get immersed with the characters, even if they are only marginally interesting or compelling, and then when it comes time for these medical students (who apparently have such mad skills at it they can do things like wield weaponry and sew up their body parts when need be) kick major ass. This movie is made for people who want a good solid zombie movie that combines comedy, tension, and enough ridiculous motions to go a long enough way to make things always entertaining. It's almost a study in how to uplift past conventional crap into something artful and electrifying. It's also cheesy and stupid and a bucket of crazy when it can get to that point (I mean, Colonel Herzog, come on!) Bottom line, pair this with and the other midnight movie festival hit Hysterical Psycho and you got a smashing double feature.

The mandatory circumstances to watch a movie like "Dead Snow" are as follows: at a horror themed festival amongst hundreds of outrageously enthusiast and derailed fellow genre fanatics - preferably at 3am on a weekend night – and surrounded by booze and snacks. If this shouldn't be possible, try and gather as many friends together for a drunken movie night, but whatever you do, don't watch this cheerfully repugnant and positively demented movie all by yourself as it is too much of a crowd-pleaser! The formula of laugh-evoking zombie splatter movies isn't new (even Nazi zombie movies have been done before, for example "Shock Waves" and "Zombie Lake"),but spirited and ambitious young filmmakers never cease to invent original variations on the sub genre. Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola took his cast & crew high up north, for a splatter film in a beautiful and isolated snowy setting. A group of medical students – that are also die-hard horror movie freaks – trek to a remote mountain cabin for a weekend of snow scooter fun, drinking and casual sex. The first night of their arrival already, they receive a visit from a mysterious and grumpy old local who tells them a grotesquely absurd story about sinister events that occurred in the area near the end of WWII. The atmospheric tale says that fed up villagers combined forces and chased their Nazi occupants into the mountains where they all froze to death. The clique laughs away the warnings, but subsequently discovers a box of old coins that promptly resurrects an army of Nazi soldiers in a far developed state of decomposition. The first half of "Dead Snow" is slow-paced, atmospheric and full of little tributes to classic zombie movies; particularly "The Evil Dead" movies. The students are standard horror stereotypes, including the nerd and the blond bimbo, and thus the first half also contains childish pranks and gratuitous sex sequences. As soon as the Nazi zombies emerge, however, "Dead Snow" is a non-stop spitfire of blood, gore and intestines. Apparently the production of this film required 450 liters of fake blood, and that isn't nearly so surprising if you watch the end result. There's chainsaw action, decapitations, rope pulling with intestines, axe murders, machine gun concerts and disembowelment. The effects are top-notch in spite of the obvious budgetary restrictions, and the make up art on the zombies is very impressive. The rotting uniformed corpses look quite menacing, especially their leader. The snowy landscapes are beautiful picture to behold, although it's even more amusing to see the white snow color red with blood! Tommy Wirkola is a clearly talented director and hopefully a promising long career awaits him.