DØD SNØ
(DEAD SNOW)
(Review)


Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola kicks off Død snø (Dead Snow) to Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” and this rousing (yet vaguely sinister) tune ushers us—without much ado—into this fun Nazi zombie romp.
Yes, you read that right.
Nazi zombie.
How cool is that?!


A bunch of med students are off in the snow-capped mountains for Easter vacation, and, well, they run into those pesky Nazi zombies, and much screaming, and bloodshed, and running around (yes, these are post-28 Days Later deadheads) ensue.
Now, despite that smirk-guaranteed premise (Nazi. Zombie.), Død snø isn’t a horror-comedy on the order of Shaun of the Dead, but rather a horror film that straddles two sub-genres (the zombie romp and the isolated-cabin-in-the-wilderness thriller), with some comedic touches thrown in for good measure.
Think a more sedate version of a latter day Evil Dead installment, when the humour was quickly encroaching on the material. To be clear, there aren’t any Three Stooges or dismembered-hand-giving-the-hero-the-finger moments in Død snø (I did say “more sedate”). But there are some laughs and over-the-top insanity amidst the shouty, gory bits.


In point of fact, early on in Død snø, the horror film milieu is acknowledged, with Evil Dead actually mentioned, a cheeky swipe all in line with Død snø’s sense of fun within a horror movie context; it’s also a sentiment I happen to agree with, a feeling that’s been with me ever since I was vaguely disappointed after seeing Evil Dead 2 for the first time.
Of course, what Evil Dead 2 and Død snø share is that both are rather fun experiences at the cinema. That common trait notwithstanding, Død snø does have its shortcomings, among them, the vaguely insubstantial back story to the wild goings-on. (And yes, Evil Dead did have a very basic back story as well, but somehow, the rest of the audacious proceedings more than made up for its rather elementary nature.)


Still, Død snø does have its moments, and has piqued my interest, not just in a proposed sequel (here’s hoping Wirkola hits it spot on a second time out), but also the reported Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, in which we find the titular siblings all grown up and having turned their childhood trauma into their livelihood. (In this case, I’m hoping Wirkola can get right what Terry Gilliam fumbled in The Brothers Grimm.)


(Død snø OS courtesy of twitchfilm.net; images courtesy of twitchfilm.net, empireonline.com, & shocktillyoudrop.com; Dead Snow OS courtesy of rushprint.no.)

PERFECT CREATURE
(Review)

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a largely satisfying vampire movie, but Glenn Standring’s visionary Perfect Creature has broken that particular drought.
Set in an alternate future where disease is rampant due to early genetic tinkering by the alchemists, the centuries-long alliance between humanity and the Brothers (a more highly evolved branch of Homo sapiens with pointy canines; it’s the sort of story where we never hear the “V” word) is suddenly put in peril when Brother Edgar (Leo Gregory; Tristan + Isolde) begins killing humans, apparently something that has never been done since the Brothers first came into the world.
Standing in mad Brother Edgar’s way are Brother Silus (the man who would have been Wolverine, Dougray Scott, seen recently on Desperate Housewives and soon in the upcoming Hitman), who is being groomed to take over leadership of the Brothers, and Lilly (Saffron Burrows; Deep Blue Sea and, more recently, in Fay Grim: review in Archive June 2007), a human police officer haunted by her past.

What will strike audiences first about Perfect Creature is the wonderfully imagined setting, one of those retrofuturist cities where zeppelins soar the skies. The look and atmosphere is largely Victorian England, but there are elements taken from other time periods as well, some as late as World War II. The film’s look is reminiscent of everything from Terry Gilliam’s Brazil to Alex Proyas’ Dark City, and yet, is something that is particularly its own.
But what ultimately gives the setting its ring of truth is how well-thought out the milieu is. Standring clearly spent time in developing this world, mapping out its social and religious (and to a lesser extent, political) environs. There was the same sense of tremendous forethought that went into Kurt Wimmer’s Ultraviolet. (Say what you want about Ultraviolet’s plot—or the lack of it, actually—but it’s a world that had its rules laid out pretty impressively.)

The world of Perfect Creature is one where religion and science never really split, where humanity has the Brothers—who are portrayed as an interesting mix of priests and guardian angels—to watch over them.
Dougray Scott, who adopts a constant air of a cold, observant superior, does a commendable job as Brother Silus. The beauty here is that you never get the sense of any haughtiness in his superiority. Silus is simply so much better than a mere human, and though he is acutely aware of that difference, he is also sympathetic to the human condition. Scott also manages to temper his performance with a predatory undercurrent, giving the impression that Silus could very well snaps bones and rip flesh apart, but chooses not to because he has vowed to be a protector.
And while Silus is the narrative’s Michael, Edgar is most definitely Lucifer. A brilliant geneticist who works to save his own race from possible extinction—a Brother hasn’t been born in nearly a century; a female Brother has never been born at all (all Brothers are, in effect, mutant offspring of normal human females)—Edgar falls prey to the madness in his blood, and by his actions, dooms the peace between humanity and her unearthly children.

As a film, Perfect Creature plays as a fascinating hybrid of a number of cinematic strains (the serial killer film; the epidemic film; the vampire film; the future dystopia film), and yet ultimately, plays out as none of the above. Just as its look, Perfect Creature is its own particular animal.
And though Edgar’s final fate may border on anti-climax, and the film’s final twist border on deus ex machina, Standring does leave us with a world ripe for revolution, and this is one of those rare moments where I actually do want to see a sequel, if only to get another chance to dive back into this engrossing milieu.

(Perfect Creature posters courtesy of upcominghorrormovies.com & black-magic.co.nz; DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)